Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/492

 452 MEXICO. marcs of silver on the Monton of thirty-six quintals, if within seventy or one hundred leagues of the Capital, in lieu of ex- ploring the tantalizing wealth of the North, where, although fifteen and twenty marcs were yielded by the same quantity of ore, the profit was absorbed by usurious charges on every thing else. These reasons became only more cogent after 1810 ; for, although Mints were established at Durango, and Chihuahua, quicksilver rose in price, during the Revolution, from forty- one dollars to one hundred and forty, and one hundred and fifty dollars the quintal ; while the general want of capital, rendered it impossible for the miners to obtain advances, (Avios,) even by the greatest sacrifices. The whole country, therefore, North of Durango, remains almost unexplored. That it will long continue so, I do not believe, for public attention has already been turned in this direction, and should the first adventurers succeed, an extra" ordinary change may be expected to take place in the Mining interests of New Spain in the course of the next twenty years. That the great mineral treasures of Mexico commence exactly at the point where Humboldt rightly states the labours of the Spaniards to have terminated, (about Latitude 24°,) is a fact now universally admitted by the native miners, although, hitherto, but httle known in Europe. In order the better to illustrate it, I shall beg to subjoin some details, which I was enabled to collect during my jour- ney into the Interior, premising, that I have the evidence of Registers of produce, and official documents, for every fact submitted to my readers, (some of the least voluminous of which I subjoin,) and that I have adopted nothing upon mere verbal report. The States of Durango, Sonora, Chihuahua, and Sinaloa, contain an infinity of mines hitherto but Kttle known, but holding out, wherever they have been tried, a promise of riches superior to any thing that Mexico has yet produced.