Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/609

Rh $318,935,554. One single mine, the Valenciana, yielded in less than five years about $14,000,000, and in 1791 as much silver as all the mines of Peru. Although open since the sixteenth century the work had been unprofitable till 1668, when the owners, Obregon, later conde de Valenciana, and Otero, struck a rich vein, which after 1771 gave at times as much as $2,500,000 per annum. During twenty years the ores averaged five ounces of silver to the quintal.

In San Luis Potosí, the veins in the district of Catorce, discovered in 1773, and worked with success since 1778, eclipsed all others, which in that region had acquired fame during the preceding two centuries. One mine alone, belonging to a priest named Flores, yielded, during the first year, 1,600,000 pesos. The product of the whole district, from 1778 till 1810, was estimated at 4,000,000 pesos yearly; and that of the entire intendencia San Luis de Potosi, from 1556 till 1789, at 92,736,294 marks of silver, representing 788,258,212 pesos. Next in importance to the mines of Catorce, were those in the districts of Bolaños and Ramos, which in some years also yielded enormously, and gave weight to the general belief that they were inexhaustible.

A similar view prevailed concerning the third prominent mining region, that of Zacatecas, which,