them for their toll. There are over fifty of such haciendas, some of them quite extensive. Mr. Parkman, of Ohio, has one of the oldest and largest. He is now somewhat feeble in years, and his sons carry on his business. His house, spacious and cool, overlooks his works. The miners and owners bring their ore here. It is distributed according to its apparent value, the best masses being reduced by themselves. The ore is beaten under huge hammers, ground by mules walking round a press, in which it is reduced to powder, placed in open vats, mixed with dissolving chemicals, salt, sulphurets, and powerful solvents, and trampled by horses to get the soil and solvents well mixed together. But the powerful chemicals soon injure their feet. Mr. Parkman, with his Yankee wit, provides a cheap and admirable substitute. It is simply a barrel moving along an axle. The axle stretches across the patio from the centre to the circumference. Horses outside pull it round. The barrel on the axle both revolves upon it and moves up and down it, reaching thereby all the composition, and commingling it more perfectly than horses' feet can do, yet with injury to none. It is a simple and seemingly effective remedy.
From this patio the substance is put through several waters, and the silver at last nearly extracted. It is then placed in furnaces, and by heating, the still adhering and undesired elements are driven out; and so, through fire and water, the well-sought silver is brought into a narrow compass. Even then it is ragged and unfit for working. It must be run into bars, and carried to the mint, and coined into solid dollars, halves, and quarters, for the delight and destruction of mankind. In Guanajuato they vary this form of its ultimate disposition with those more pleasing and artistic; and horses, horsemen, muleteers, carboneros, and other native peculiarities are cast in solid silver, and sold as curiosities at comparatively low rates. In fact, silver is about all that flourishes in Guanajuato. The people, like those of most mining towns, are reckless of money and morals.
The church is more than silver. How is it in Guanajuato? Not very hopeful. Like most mining towns, it is more free than
