Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/527

Rh the Sierra late in the evening from Mătĕhūālă, where he had been employed at some village fête, lost his horse, and being forced, in consequence, to pass the night in the mountains, lighted a large fire upon the spot where the shaft of Milagros was afterwards sunk. In the morning he discovered a cake of silver amongst the embers, upon which he immediately denounced the vein, and is said to have drawn from it, within ten yards of the surface, ores producing sixty marcs of silver to the carga.

But before this denunciation, which first attracted the attention of the public, Don Bernabé Cĕpēdă was working the mine of Guădălūpĕ on the Veta Madre, in the midst then of impenetrable forests, and sending silver to Mătĕhūālă, and other places, to be reduced, without any one knowing from whence it proceeded. The good fortune of Mīlāgrŏs soon covered the barren rocks with inhabitants. Shafts were sunk upon the Veta Madre in rapid succession, the most important of which I have already enumerated; and other veins were discovered, some intersecting the great mother-vein, as that of La Luz, and others perfectly distinct from it, as those of Zavala, Dolores Trompeta, and San Ramon.

The principal mines upon the vein of La Luz were San Geronimo and Santa Ana, which belonged to Captain Zuñiga, of whose will I have already made mention. He bequeathed four millions of dollars for charitable institutions, reserving a fund for working his mines, which appears to have been swallowed up,