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328 suppose, that in a district abounding in metalliferous veins, none of which have been worked to any considerable depth, whilst all are known to have been productive in earlier times, a Company which is in possession of every mine of any importance in the Real, and which is about to push its workings through a great extent of virgin ground, should not be amply repaid for its present advances. Its chances of success increase in proportion to the extent of its operations, as the veins are explored upon all the most essential points at once; while the mining works, which are under the direction of an active, cautious, and scientific man, Mr. Burkart, are sure to be conducted with economy, and executed with the greatest possible precision. With regard to time, a few months more or less are of little importance in an enterprise of such magnitude; and I should think even more highly than I now do of the prospects of the Tlalpujahua Company, were the Directors in England to forego for a year the hope of immediate returns, and to devote the whole of that time to the completion of the great Adit, by which the drainage of two-thirds of the district would be effected at once, and an immense saving made in the ultimate expences of the Association.

I remained at Tlalpujahua nearly a week, during which I visited all the mines which had been brought into activity up to that time, as well as the Haciendas, the most distant of which, San Rafael, is