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506 proceed until the contracts are cancelled, and more equitable conditions substituted for them. In Guadalupe, for instance, the "Habilitators" have only six barras, or one-fourth, for which they paid at once 20,000 dollars as "alimentos," and bound themselves to lay out 100,000 dollars upon the mine. Should this prove insufficient, for every additional sum of 20,000 dollars advanced by them, they are to receive an additional barra until they have acquired nine barras, which number they are not to exceed. The Company would therefore pay 180,000 dollars in all, for something more than one-third of the mine; and this, in a district where the possibility of obtaining more favourable terms has been so clearly demonstrated by the contracts concluded by Mr. Crawford, on the part of the Catorce Company, with the Governor and Don Xavier Martin, for the socabon of La Purisima, and the mines upon the Veta Madre connected with it; in all of which the "aviadores" are allowed a full half, without "alimentos" or advances of any kind, except those required for the prosecution of the work itself.

In Milagros the works had been suspended in consequence of a law-suit with the proprietor.

The Veta Descubridora of Catorce was worked as early as 1773: it is situated to the N.N.W. of the town, and has never produced a single good mine; nor were the riches concealed in its vicinity suspected until 1778, when a free black, by name Milagros, a wandering musician, returning across