Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/493

MEXICO. 453 The Districts, a list, or sketch of the principal of which will will be found in Table IV., are distinguished, not less by the superior quality of their ores, than by the circumstance of their beginning to be productive within a very little dis- tance from the surface, (usually from ten to fifteen yards) ; whereas the Veta Madre of Guanajuato yields little or nothing until the depth of eighty yards is attained. The metals seem to increase in richness as you approach the North ; insomuch that in the Real, or District^ of Jesus Maria, in that great branch of the Sierra Madre, which separates the States of Durango and Chihuahua, from those of Sonora and Sinaloa, to the North and West, — the ores of the mine of Santa Juliana, (which does not exceed seventy yards in depth) appear, by a certified Report from tha Diputacion de Mine- ria, now before me, to average seven and eight marcs of silver per carga, of (300 lbs.,) which is the average produce of ten cargas of good ore in Guanajuato; while ores of the best quality yield as much as from four to ten marcs per Arroba, (of 25 lbs.) or forty marcs per carga. At Batopilas, (in the State of Chihuahua,) where the matrix is, in general, quartz, the pure malleable silver inter- mixed with it often exceeds in proportion one half ; and masses of this description, of the weight of eleven Arrobas, (270 lbs.,) have been raised. One of five Arrobas in weight, (125 lbs.,) was in existence at Chihuahua during my visit to the North, and I was even solicited to purchase it for the British Museum. Only three Districts in the North have been, hitherto, worked with any sort of regularity, Santa Eiilalia, Batopilas, and Guarisamey. The first, (Santa Eulalia,) from its vicinity to the town of Chihuahua, was worked as early as 1705. Its registered produce, from that time to 1737? was 55,959,7-50 dollars, or an average of 1,748,742 dollars per annum. From 1737 to 1791, it yielded something more