larger portion than any other, of the mines most celebrated for their former riches, and that on terms sufficiently equitable. I, therefore, rate their prospects high. But, at the same time, it must be confessed, that the vast extent of their undertakings is a disadvantage, from the impossibility of enforcing uniformity of system in operations, which are spread over 800 leagues of country, (from Jesus Maria, North-west of Chihuahua, to Teojomulco, in Oaxaca,) and that, consequently, there is reason to fear that the difficulties of management will tend, whatever be the exertions of the directors, considerably to diminish the profits.
It would be folly in me to attempt to fix what Mr. Alaman has declared his inability to do,—the period at which the Company may look for the repayment of its advances; but should any one of their great undertakings succeed, (and it is difficult for the most desponding to suppose them all failures,) that period cannot be more distant than that fixed by the Directors of other Companies—viz. the year 1831 or 1832.
The Report with which the Directors of the German Company were so obliging as to furnish me, contains many interesting facts, some of which tend not a little to confirm the opinion, which I have expressed in the preceding Section, that, had the attention of the British public not been exclusively directed to the mines which came recommended by Baron Humboldt's authority, capital might have been, in
