Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/459

Rh thirty-five Mexican varas. When the Company took possession of the mine, the whole of the interior was filled with water to within one hundred and eighty-five varas of the mouth of the great shaft: there were consequently four hundred and fifty varas to drain, and this not merely in perpendicular depth, but disseminated throughout the whole of the workings, most of which had been so long under water that the communications were destroyed, the timbering falling to pieces, and many of the lower levels filled up with masses of rock, or Tĕpĕtātĕ, detached by the action of the water from those above. Had this volume of water proceeded from internal springs, the attempt to carry it off by any power of machinery would have been hopeless; but up to a very late period, the mine of Valenciana was distinguished by its extreme dryness, which was such that the workmen were at times much incommoded by the dust. The water was first admitted by an injudicious communication with the neighbouring mine of Tĕpĕyāc, and it was allowed to accumulate during the whole of the Revolution, the machinery having been much injured by Hidalgo's troops in 1810, and subsequently destroyed by Mina's followers, after his unsuccessful attempt upon Guanajuato in 1818. The effect of such an accumulation in a country where a river is often formed in an hour by the Tropical rains, can hardly be conceived by those who are not acquainted with their violence. It was such that no individual could have undertaken the