Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/509

 * MEXICO. 469 Mexican Companies, the population increased from thirty to nearly forty-five thousand. A similar change took place at Zacatecas, Sdmbrerete, and Real del Monte. Hundreds of Indians emerged from the fastnesses, in which they had been dragging on a precarious, and almost savage existence, in the midst of every kind of privation, to seek a livelihood by active labour ; and this disposition must necessarily increase, as the advantages derived from it become more apparent. It will not, however, produce its full effect, until the mines begin to yield ores anew, for it is only the really industrious part of the population that has sought employment, hitherto, in the preparatory works ; but, from the moment that these are concluded, it is very generally thought that there will be no deficiency of labourers. I have already pointed out the fact, that the importance of the mines of Mexico consists not merely in the amount of the Mineral treasures which they produce, but in the impulse communicated by them to all the other great interests of the State. In a country, the largest and most fertile portion of which, (the Table-land,) is precluded, by the peculiarity of its posi- tion, and by the want of a water-communication with the Coast, from exchanging its produce for that of European in- dustry, the great mass of the population would be reduced to the lowest state of indigence, were it not for the home-market created by the mines. In this respect, the very poverty of the ores of Mexico was an advantage, by increasing enor- mously the scale upon which Mining establishments were necessarily formed. We have seen that the Three millions of marcs of silver, to which the average annual produce of the country amounted, were extracted from Ten millions of Quintals of ore ; and I have endeavoured to give, in the second Section, some idea of the process, by which the sepa- ration of the silver from this mass of extraneous substances was effected. The number of men and animals employed in