is attended with no risk, as the mine pays its own expences; and should it turn out well, the net profits will consequently be in the same proportion as the additional produce.
The third mine habilitated by the United Company in Guanajūato, is one of the oldest in the district, Cata. It did not attain any great celebrity until the commencement of the last century, when it was worked, in conjunction with Mellado, by Don Francisco Matias de Būstŏ, afterwards created Marquis of San Clĕmēntĕ, and celebrated as the richest man of his age. Cātă occupies the whole of the valley of that name; its extreme depth is three hundred and sixty varas; yet the mine has been drained, and put into complete repair, by the application of Mexican machinery, in fourteen months, with an outlay not exceeding 255,000 dollars. As to the future produce, very different opinions are entertained. Mr. Alaman, and the managing agent, Mr. Lazo de la Vega, are sanguine in their expectations of success, but the public in general regard the mine as exhausted, and think the attempt to work it anew injudicious. From this, however, no conclusion can be drawn, a similar sentence having been pronounced against many other celebrated mines at the close of their first great Bonanzas, which, when taken up anew after a lapse of several years, were found amply to repay their new proprietors. Such was the case with the mine of La Quebradīlla at Zacatecas, when its management was undertaken by
