Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/249



Rh The idea was seized upon with especial avidity in England. It was represented that but two simple things were needed: the pumping-out of the water which had accumulated in the disused shafts, and improved machinery for working at lower levels, than those which had been within the reach of the primitive appliances of the country. Seven great English companies were formed, which proceeded to pour out millions upon millions of pounds, distributing the money among the several mining districts of chief repute; and these half depopulated Cornwall for laborers for the new interests. The idea was in itself a good one. Mexico had produced in three hundred years of mining, according to the estimate of Humboldt, $1,767,952,000 of value in the precious metals. The yield had been going on before the Revolution at the rate of $30,000,000 yearly. It was an industry of the greatest regularity. From 3000 to 5000 mines were in operation, and constituted its chief wealth. Its towns were mining towns; its great families mining families. The funds from this source had built the churches, the dams for irrigation by which the great agricultural estates were brought under cultivation, and had supplied the gifts and loans to the King by which the nobility secured their titles. By the Revolution this source of wealth was exhausted and dried up. The new Congress of the country felt the imperative need of doing something to reopen it, and encouraged the advent of foreign capital by a legislation which is still felt as a liberalizing influence in mining matters.

The idea was a good one, as I say, but the foreign investors did not sufficiently estimate the difficulties of their undertaking, the novelty of the country, language, persons, and processes, and the physical obstacles with which they had to deal. Almost without exception they lost