4-76 MEXICO. the country has yielded since the Conquest, (Humboldt cal- culates it at 1,767,952,000 dollars, in 1803,) has proceeded from a few Central spots, in which the capital and activity of the first speculators found ample employment : yet, if we examine those spots, we shall find that three centuries of constant productiveness, have not been sufficient to exhaust the principal mines originally worked in each, while by far the largest proportion of the great Veins remains unexplored. This is the case at Guanajuato, with the mines of Cata and Rayas, and at Zacatecas, with those of San Acasio and San Bernabe, — all of which now belong to the United Mexican Association. Valenciana is a more recent discovery, but Mellado, (likewise at Guanajuato,) which belongs to the Anglo-Mexican Company, is supposed to have been the first mine denounced in that district. At Sombrerete, the Vein of the Pavell5n has been worked from the time of the Con- quest, though it was only in the year 1792 that it produced the famous Bonanza of the Fagoagas. The mines of Santa Eulalia, in Chihuahiia, continued to be equally productive during a period of eighty years, and were only abandoned at last in consequence of the incursions of the Indian Tribes.* The riches of Real del Monte can hardly be said to have diminished in a term of sixty years, although the difficulty of the drainage caused the works there to be suspended.-|- The same may be said of Bolahos, which is likewise in the hands of one of the English Companies; {Vide Section II.) — and although, in some of the inferior districts, many smaller veins have been worked out, we have to set against this the immense regions hitherto unexplored, or if examined, only sufficiently
- Fide preceding Section.
f Count Regla possesses an account, given upon oath by the miners employed in 1801, of the state of the lower levels^ at the time when the mines on the Biscaina vein were given up, by which it appears that the richness of the vein continued unimpaired.
