appeared. The payment by shares, partido, which soon predominated over the daily wages given to tanda gangs,[1] could not fail to promote the interests of both employers and laborers, although the gambling table received only too much of the increased earnings.[2]
For the first decades the method of extracting metals was so backward that only rich ores could be worked, especially in regions where fuel was scarce. In 1557, however, Bartolomé de Medina, a miner of the district of Pachuca, discovered the amalgamation process, and bestowed on the world a boon of which New Spain may be proud. His plan of extracting the fine metals from ores with the aid of quicksilver rendered results so satisfactory that but few improvements have since been introduced. Little is known of the discoverer,[3] a fact which almost implies that he derived little benefit from a discovery which was of vast importance to the mining industry. Ores which formerly had been considered worthless, were now regarded with more interest; veins held to be unproductive were worked anew', and so rapid was the adoption of the process that within five years Zacatecas alone had thirty-five reduction works, and yet they by no means displaced existing methods in every place.[4]
- ↑ Tanda was the name given to the gang of native workmen drawn from Indian villages and relieved once a month. Ward asserts that this system was chiefly used in Peru, Mex., ii. 145, and Alaman, Disert., i. 177-8, shows that the name has survived in that of the monthly markets or fairs in Guanajuato.
- ↑ Arlegui, Chrón. Zac., 137, says Indian miners were entitled to one bag of ore per day, which sometimes would sell for $100.
- ↑ Calle, Mem. y Not., 49, and Garcés, Nueva Teórica, 76-7, merely allude to him as a native of Spain, and Humboldt, Essai Pol., ii. 559, mentions the names of two others to whom certain authors have attributed the discovery.
- ↑ Humboldt, Essai Pol., ii. 55, 72, gives interesting details concerning both the old and new methods. A statistical table on page 556, comprising the produce of all the mining districts from 1785 till 1789, shows that about two sevenths of the entire yield were submitted to extraction by smelting. In 1805, however, this fraction was reduced to about one fifth. Ward, Mex., ii. 434-9, gives also a full description of the mode of extraction, with several illustrations of the implements used.
issued, referring to the position of Indians in mining matters; they are given in the Recop. de Ind., ii. 308 et seq.; Montemayor, Sumarios, 203-4, pt. iii. 44-5.
