Page:Appleton's Guide to Mexico.djvu/108

80 used. Malacates, or large horse-whims, are substituted for the former; and water is raised in large skins attached to ropes. The peons carry pieces of ore weighing from one hundred to two hundred pounds on their backs from the "headings" of the levels to the main shaft, where the mineral is hoisted in huge baskets.

Iron drills of domestic manufacture and tipped with steel are still used by the peons. A few foreigners are employed at high wages in the mines of Chihuahua and the neighboring States, and also at the town of Pachuca, but they generally occupy positions like that of superintendent or engineer. American mine-owners in Mexico admit that the "jackass" mode of mining of the natives is cheaper than the European methods.

The Mexican miners are not much annoyed by heat nor by water. Humboldt found the temperature at the bottom of the Valenciana mine, then 1,681 feet deep, to be 93° Fahr. The miners descend in the shafts, either by means