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 proved, and particularly after the building of the railway line in 1851, the effect of natural conditions upon the mining inter- ests and more especially upon agricultural and grazing inter- ests received less and less attention in the reports of the suc- cessive gencral managers of the mines; and in the last few decades the reports become constantly briefer as difficulties are taken for granted and as modern machinery is introduced to solve many of the other difficulties under which mining was conducted in this frontier province. The effect of natural con- ditions is still felt, but they are made less of by business enter- prise. The officers of a mining company today look at the production of ore rather than study the environment in which the men work who produce the ore. ‘The modern view is that the only important thing is the actual output of the mine—all the rest is detail which the general manager must handle as best he can.

Having tn mind the frequency of earthquakes and the ac- companying risk of damage by fire, | felt it wise to make an abstract of much of the correspondence. I do not know whether the violent and destructive earthquake of 1922 left these old records intact or whether they have since been de- stroyed; but the originals, many of them containing maps re- ferred to in the notes, have recently been destroyed by the home company in London on account of lack of space. I took twenty-five pages of notes, and these I have deposited in the archives of the American Geographical Society, where they may be consulted. While many of the data in these notes have been worked into the ensuing narrative and description, there are additional details in the notes that might be of interest to historical students. I will give a few selected illustrations merely to indicate the quality of the material.

After a discussion of the struggle which took place in 1862 for water rights and comments on the rich harvest that the lawyers expected to reap and on the old documents and still older traditions regarding water rights, the directors are in- formed in a letter dated April 2, 1862, as follows:

“When we consider the immense value of the water in these deserts and that in a few hours, more or less, of irrigation