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124 his modern methods and machinery was able to extract a profit.

During the first three hundred years following the conquest of Mexico, very much the larger part of the richest deposits of gold and silver had been discovered and exhausted to the extent that the Spanish methods of mining permitted. When the revolution against Spain began, mining was nothing like as important as it had been; and, of course, the disturbed conditions during the eleven year contest for freedom further reduced that industry. Little was done to revive it until sometime after 1830 when, encouraged by the hope that the country would have a government of some stability, the English were first among foreigners to begin taking an active part in mining. A brief resume of the development of the principal silver and gold-mining centres in Mexico follows.

Pachuca, State of Hidalgo. This camp was discovered by the Spaniards and operated by them for many years. In this operation, most of the deposit available under Spanish methods of mining was exhausted and that fact, together with the unsettled conditions produced by the revolution beginning in 1810, resulted in a suspension of mining activity in this centre. About 1830 English capital became interested in these mines and by