Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/601

Rh me that one of these men, who had received a boleta so worded as to entitle him to select his own ores, (a toda satisfaccion,) by waiting, and refusing all but the very richest stones until he had completed his five cargas, obtained nearly 8,000 dollars for an old cloak with a red velvet lining, with which Pacheco's fancy had been much struck.

The real amount of the bonanza of El Refugio was never correctly ascertained, but Don Francisco Mĭrămōntĕs, who acquired as "Habilitator" three bars (or one-eighth) in Pacheco's mines in the year 1811, appears, by the registers of Durango, to have returned to that place in 1814 with 337,000 dollars. The mines, none of which exceed seventy varas in depth, having been worked only by an open cut, (a tajo abierto,) are now abandoned.

To the North of El Părrāl, and about five leagues to the South-east of the city of Chihuahua, is the ancient mining district of Santa Eulalia. It has been long abandoned, and the mines are in a ruinous state. The ores were generally found in loose earth, filling immense caverns, (salones,) of which some are stated to be sufficiently large to contain the cathedral of Mexico. The correctness of this assertion may require confirmation; but there can be little doubt of their magnitude, since the last bonanza extracted from one of them continued for nine years, and one real being laid aside for each marc of silver produced, a fund was formed, out of which the cathedral of Chihuahua was built, and a fund of