Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 1.djvu/251

Rh any further taxation or deductions, are acknowledged to be his own.

It is not my intention minutely to describe the processes connected with silver-mining, and the operations of extracting the ore and melting it into shining blocks and wedges: but it may be proper to describe what appeared to me among the principal features of the proceedings.

There are different kinds of silver-mines; in some of which the veins of metal take an angular, and in others a semi-circular direction. When the men and mules who work below have succeeded in procuring some tons of ore, it is drawn up in leathern boxes, and conveyed by attendants to the receiving-houses; from whence, if very pure, it is at once transferred to the smelting-furnaces. If, however, it contains, as it generally does, a great quantity of alloy, it is despatched to the crushing-room, where a powerful bruising machine, called molienda, is brought to bear upon it; and when it is sufficiently pulverized by this process, it is adjudged ready for transmission to the grinding-mill.

The grinding-mills consist of cisterns, from fifteen to thirty feet in diameter, dug in the