Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/556

536 of three individuals, Don Frăncīscŏ Cŏstīllă, Don Matias Carrasquilla, and Don José de la Peña Duran, and produced, in the year 1675, a bonanza, which is said, by a contemporary author, to have yielded, for five years, 20,000 dollars a-day.

This statement is probably exaggerated, but the amount of silver raised must have been very considerable, as the church of San Juan Bautista, at Sombrerete, is known to have been built out of the profits of one barra, (that is, one share out of twenty-four,) set apart for the purpose by Costilla, one of the three proprietors, in the year 1679.

In 1681 a Real Caja, or Royal Treasury, was established in the district, by the registers of which it appears, that in the next ten years, although the riches of the Pavellon are said to have decreased materially during that time, the sums paid as the King's fifth, upon the whole produce of the district, were 1,406,468 marcs, and six ounces of silver, or about twelve millions of dollars.

The causes which led to the abandonment of the mines from which these enormous riches proceeded, are not now known; it is supposed, however, that lawsuits first induced the owners to suspend their operations, and that the accumulation of water, which took place during the interval, rendered it impossible to resume them in those early ages, when the powers of machinery were so little known. Be this