Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/611

Rh the small population, the frequent raids of wild tribes, and the difficulty of exchanging the bullion for coined silver. The latter could be effected only at the mint of Mexico, a circumstance which proved to be a serious encumbrance on mining operations even in the less remote intendencias of San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas, particularly to miners with small capital.

This difficulty gave rise to the business of middlemen, or of rescatadores, as they were called. They or their agents would purchase the ore, extract the metal at their own expense, and exchange it in Mexico for coin. The miner, receiving immediate cash returns for his ores, was enabled to continue the output; and although the accommodation was obtained at considerable sacrifice, a great difficulty was removed. In the southern regions rescatadores were less numerous, for the miners there enjoyed greater facilities in being nearer to the capital.

The principal districts in the neighborhood of Mexico were Taxco and Pachuca, and Tlalpujagua in Michoacan. Since the days of the conquest Spaniards had worked the veins of Taxco, and Cortés constructed there a gallery, El Socabon del Rey, of sufficient dimensions to be entered on horseback for a distance of about three hundred feet. This district reached the height of its prosperity between 1752 and 1762, after which it declined so rapidly that at the end of the century the yield, together with that of the mines of Tehuilotepec and others, barely amounted to 60,000 marks of silver. A similar fate was encountered by the mines of Pachuca, including Real del Monte, Atotonilco, and Moran, as the most important. The first, also called from the richest vein the Vizcaina, was worked with fair success from the sixteenth till the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the difficulties of drainage led to its abandonment. Work was