Page:Mexico under Carranza.djvu/139

Rh the reason that a very carefully thought-out and excellent code of mining laws prescribed, as do those of the United States, the methods by which mineral deposits might be secured and worked. A study of the history of precious-metal mining in Mexico during the past three quarters of a century will show that the principal enterprises conducted by foreigners were of three kinds and usually involved securing the mines from private owners.

First: the reopening of mines upon which work had ceased because the Mexican miners had carried the workings down to a depth at which it became impossible with their primitive equipment to control the water, and they had been driven out. The foreigners, by applying modern high-powered pumps, were enabled to unwater these mines and to follow the deposits to greater depths than could ever have been reached by the Mexicans.

Second: the handling of large deposits of low-grade ores which by the primitive methods of the Mexicans could never have been treated with profit, but which, by the application of modern improvements, permitting large quantities of ore to be handled cheaply, enabled the foreigner to make a profit.

Third: in re-working great dumps of material that had once been worked by Mexican miners whose primitive methods failed to extract all the values. From these old dumps the foreigner with