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126 Plata Pasta, or silver in a raw state, they paid at least double the market price.

It will hardly be believed that silver of the finest quality has been sold, (and currently sold) in the Northern provinces, at four dollars two reals, and four dollars four reals per marc, the Mint price being eight dollars.

Few mines, however rich, could be worked under these disadvantages, and they sufficiently account for the preference, which was given by the old miners to ores, that yielded seven and eight marcs of Silver on the Monton of thirty-six quintals, if within seventy or one hundred leagues of the Capital, in lieu of exploring the tantalizing wealth of the North, where, although fifteen and twenty marcs were yielded by the same quantity of ore, the whole 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 per quintal; while the general want of confidence, and capital, rendered it impossible for the miners to obtain advances, (Avios) even by the greatest sacrifices.

The whole country, therefore. North of Durango,