416 MEXICO. boasted improvements* have not been productive of any solid advantage, while others have proved complete failures ; and where this is. the case, it is next to impossible, in any coun- try, to substitute new methods, merely because they are new, for a practice, which time has already rendered familiar. Experience has now induced most of the Companies to re- trace their steps, and to reduce their establishments in such a manner as to make the management strictly European, while the operative part is confided to Natives ; but this expe- rience has been dearly bought. The Anglo-Mexican Com- pany alone had expended, in September 1826, nearly 30,000/. in salaries to men, most of whom have now been dismissed ; and full 100,000/. in machinery (including duties and car- riage from the Coast,) not one twentieth part of which either has been, or ever can be, made use of, the machinery of the country having been found fully adequate for the drainage of their Mines.f The expenses of the Real del Monte Company, in the same way, have been still greater ; but there, the issue of the whole undertaking depends upon the application of the power of Steam, and the engines render European workmen of all kinds indispensable. Even there, however, a great reduction is taking place. The United Mexican Company has likewise dismissed al- most all its European workmen. Indeed, in many instances,
- I allude not to the use of machinery where that of the country has
proved insufficient, as at Real del Monte, but to the attempt to sub- stitute the Cornish system of washing and dressing Ores, for that of New Spain. In this, as in many supposed improvements in the process of Amalgamation and Smelting, innovation has, hitherto, only led to loss ; and 1 believe that, in every instance, the works for reducing Ores are now confided to Natives. f The Mines of Villalpando and Sirena, which are likely to prove the most productive, were drained by Mr. Williamson, in six months, by the application of Malacates, (Horse Whims ;) and of the ultimate drainage of Valenciana, by the same process, 1 entertain little doubt.
