Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/473

Rh stood them in the place of iron and steel. This region of quarries is known as the Mountain of Knives,—el Cerro de las Navajas.

San Miguel is the name of the other beneficiating hacienda belonging to the Real del Monte Company; it is about two miles south of the cascade, and the most delightful in the silver region. Intending to stay there but an hour, I was induced to remain three days. Learning that I had sent my effects on to Pachuca together with my camera and gun, the administrador sent a peon for them to that point, a distance of twenty miles. When I returned to Pachuca, that same peon went with me and carried them back, making in all eighty miles on foot; yet, when I made him a present of but a dollar, he returned me a thousand thanks,—"Mil gracias, señor,"—and went away delighted.

Senor Anda, the administrador, was a graduate of the School of Mines in Mexico,—which has sent out so many finished engineers,—a commissioner to our Centennial Exhibition, where he received honorable mention, and is now the head of a hacienda requiring skill and education to manage.

In this mill they use a different process from that of Regla, called the "Saxony," of roasting the ore and washing it in revolving barrels. In crushing the "metal," they use the "Chilian process." Huge round stones, called chilenos, five feet in diameter, are made to revolve in a basin containing the metal and water. From these the water holding the silver in solution is run beneath the stamps, and then into the patio, where the rich mud gradually dries and is deposited in great beds; then it is dried over furnaces, and "roasted," after which it is mixed with mercury and "washed" in revolving barrels; the surplus mercury is squeezed out in bags, then subjected to heat and volatilized, and the silver run into bricks weighing from forty to fifty pounds. I saw one mass of silver and mercury, as it was placed in the fire to be melted and volatilized, that weighed 750 pounds, and the silver alone was worth $6,000. The whole process is conducted within closed walls, and every weight and value taken down in writing as it proceeds. For