Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/625

Rh Protestant Mission has secured a foothold here. The pioneer in this work, representing the combined Presbyterian and Congregational Boards, is the Rev. J. D. Eaton, a gentleman who has won the love and regard of the entire community, while engaged in the labor of bringing together such members of it as, deprived of the Christian influences of home, are yet desirous of retaining its memories and religious associations sweet and unimpaired. I think it is his aim—as it certainly should be—rather to supply the spiritual needs of our own people who have wandered beyond the reach of the home circle, than to attempt to proselyte from among the Mexicans.

A building which strangers to the city never fail to visit is the mint, casa de moneda, where not only do they inspect the works and operations of this establishment, but are shown a room in which Hidalgo, the liberator-priest of Mexico, was confined, the night previous to his execution in the adjacent plaza. We need not to be reminded that Chihuahua is a silver-producing State, for it has long borne that reputation. It contains eighteen or twenty well-defined mineral districts, in which are valuable mines in working, with others abandoned through Indian incursions. Twelve, at least, of these districts contain mines that have a marketable value, and are profitable to their owners. The number of large reduction works is twenty, and constantly increasing. The systems employed are the smelting and the patio (see Chapter XXII.), though the greater portion of the metal is extracted by the former, and by an improved process introduced by American capitalists.

Not only the mint is a constant witness to the great yield of the mines, but even the cathedral. Its walls, to use a figurative expression, are laid in silver, and from "turret to foundation stone" this vast structure was the product of a single mine. How? Let us see. Numerous writers have adverted to this fact, but I will quote from one the least prejudiced, because disinterested, the German traveller, Froebel: "Twelve or fifteen miles distant from the capital are the mines of Santa Eulalia, from which it derived its ancient wealth and splendor, and all the mountains of which, within a space of six square miles,