CHAPTER XXX.
The Necessity of large Capitals in Mexico.—The Finances and Revenue.—The impoverished Creditors of the State.—Princely Wealth of Individuals.
Having spoken of the Church, the great power which overawes the government, it is also proper to mention the secondary powers: the men of colossal fortune. In a country like Mexico, whose wealth arises from mines of silver, these immense private fortunes are requisite to the successful development of its resources. Large capitals must be constantly hazarded on the single chance of striking abonanza, in an adventure as uncertain as a game ofmonté. The abandoned mine often turns out to be the treasury of an untold fortune to the man who was laughed at for attempting its restoration, while the most promising adventure proves a total failure. The temptations to these adventures are dazzling in the extreme. The ambitious man forgets the shame and irretrievable ruin that follows a failure, and looks only to the chances of winning a title of nobility and "a house full of silver." Men who shun the gambling-table will adventure all on a mine, and in a year or two they have passed from the memory of men, for they have become poor. Again, a man of slender means has become rich in the Mexican sense, which means a man of millions, and then he is at once elevated by his admirers into that brilliant constellation which is the "great bear" of the Mexican firmament.
STATE CREDITORS.
Still, these powerful private individuals prevent the consolidation of any government, whether republican or dictatorial, and put far off that necessary evil, the confiscation of the estates of the Church. If there is a Congress in session, its members are influenced as our own are influenced. They are swayed this way and that by private interests. When Congress is not in session, they are constantly operating upon the treasury, or, rather, the minister of the treasury is diving about among them to raise the means to keep afloat from day to day. They will not submit to their full share of taxation. When they advance money on the pledge of some income, it is on the most onerous terms, so that at least one quarter of the revenue of Mexico is used up in interest or usury. Long experience has reduced the business of shaving the revenue to a system. The most common way to do this is to buy up some claim at twelve and a half cents on a dollar, and then couple it at par with a loan of money on the assignment of somerent. Every thing is farmed out, until at last, two years ago, Escandon proposed to farm the whole foreign duties.
Many a time have I sat down in the large ante-room of the treasury to look upon and study the characters of those who have come there to be disappointed, when promises will no longer satisfy hunger. One poor woman had got a new promise in 1851, and three months' interest, on moneydepositedwith the Consolado of Vera Cruz, and invested in 1810 in building the great road of Perote. Santa Anna, on his return, gave her a new order, and she presented it to the minister with bright hopes, when he gave her fifteen dollars—all he had in the treasury. The best way to collect a debt at Mexico is to convert it into a foreign debt, if possible, and then, if there is a resident that stands high with his minister, the matter meets with prompt attention. He that can buy a foreign embassador at Mexico has made a fortune.
MEXICAN MILLIONAIRES.
I have spoken of two rich men of Mexico, the first Count of Regla, and one who has succeeded to his mine. As I was standing on the Paséo, a lad passed driving a fine span of mules. "That is the Count de Galvez," said my companion, "the son of the late Count Perez Galvez, the lucky proprietor of thebonanzain the mine of La Suz at Guanajuato."
"But thatbonanzahas given out," said I.
"No matter; this boy's inheritance is sometimes estimated at $9,000,000." A snug capital with which to begin the world!
Laborde, the Frenchman who projected and established the magnificent garden at Cuarnavaca, and also built, from his private fortune, the great Cathedral of Toluca, made and spent two princely fortunes in successful mining, and at last ended his checkered career in poverty. The Countess Ruhl, the mother of young Galvez, and her brother the Count Ruhl, are also fortunate miners. The latter is now interested in theReal del Monte. But the rich man of the Republic is the Marquis de Jaral, in the small but rich mining department of Guanajuato. This man's wealth surpasses that of all the three patriarchs put together. A few years ago, the whole amount of his live-stock was set down by hisadministrador(overseer) at three million head. He then sent thirty thousand sheep[71]to market, which yielded him from $2.50 to $3 a head, or from $75,000 to $90,000 annually. The goats slaughtered on the estate amounted to about the same number, and yielded about the same amount of revenue. Besides all this, there is his annual product of horses and cattle, and corn and grain fields many miles in extent. Truly this Marquis of Jaral is a large farmer. But as I said of mining, so I may also say that large capitals are necessary to carry on agriculture successfully in the vast elevated plains of the northern, or, rather, interior departments, for the whole value of the valley of Jaral consists in an artificial lake, which an ancestor of the present proprietor constructed before the Revolution for the purpose of irrigation; for, without irrigation, his little kingdom would be without value. I might speak of many other landed proprietors whose estates are princely, but none are equal to Jaral. Indeed, all men of wealth possess landed estates. It is the favorite investment for successful miners to purchase afewplantations, each of a dozen leagues or so, under cultivation.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Visit to Pachuca and Real del Monte.—Otumba and Tulanzingo.—The grand Canal of Huehuetoca.—The Silver Mines of Pachuca.—Hakal Silver Mines.—Real del Monte Mines.—The Anglo-Mexican Mining Fever.—My Equipment to descend a Mine.—The great Steam-pump.—Descending the great Shaft.—Galleries and Veins of Ore.—Among the Miners one thousand Feet under Ground.—The Barrel Process of refining Silver.—Another refining Establishment.
An opposition line of stages upon the road that extends sixty miles from the city of Mexico to the northern extremity of the valley has brought down the fare to $3. It is a hard road to travel in the wet season, and not a very interesting one at any time. Three miles of causeway across the salt marsh brought us to the church and village of our Lady of Guadalupe Hidalgo. From this place we passed for several leagues along the barren tract that lies between the two salt-ponds of San Cristobal and Tezcuco, and soon arrived at Tulanzingo, where the great battle of the Free-masons was fought, and where eight poor fellows lost their lives in the bloody encounter. This, and the horrible battle of Otumba, which Cortéz fought a little way east of this spot, are memorable events in the history of Mexico—more memorable than they deserve to have been.
As we rode along the eastern rim of the valley, the sun was shining brightly on the western hill that inclosed it. The opening made by the canal of Huehuetoca was plain in sight. To read about this canal and to derive an idea of it from books is to get an impression that here, at least, the Spaniards did a wonderful work. But to look at it is to dissipate all such complimentary notions. The engineer who planned it may have been a skillful man, but the government that fettered his movements, like all Spanish governments of those times, consisted of a cross between fools and priests. Even those pious gamblers, the Franciscans, had a finger in the business. After absorbing, for near a hundred years, the revenue appropriated to completing the work, they abandoned it to the merchants of Mexico, who finally finished it. The pond that was to be drained by it, the Zumpango, was certainly an insignificant affair. There was nothing farther of interest until we arrived at Pachuca.
Pachuca is the oldest mining district in Mexico. In its immediate vicinity are the most interesting silver mines of the republic. These mines were the first that were worked in the country, and immediately after the Conquest they were very productive. They were worked for generations, and then abandoned; again resumed after lying idle for nearly a century, and worked for almost another hundred years; and then once more abandoned, and resumed again while I was in Mexico. They now produce that princely revenue to Escandon and Company of which I have already spoken.
THE HAKAL MINE.
The Hakal (Haxal) mine in part belonged to the number of those which the English Real del Monte Company worked on shares, with poor success, for twenty-five years. It lies about three fourths of a mile from the village of Pachuca. That company devoted their chief attention to the mines upon the top of the mountain, at an elevation of 9057 feet, and seven miles distant from this place, and these mines were comparatively neglected. The new company, immediately upon taking possession, devoted particular attention to the Hakal, which resulted in their striking abonanza,[72]in the Rosario shaft, which was yielding, from a single small shaft, about $80,000 a month, if I recollect rightly.[73]The ore of this mine is of a peculiar quality, and its silver is best separated from the scoria by the smelting process, of which I shall treat more fully when I come to speak of the mines of Regla. The Guadalupe shaft, close by the Rosario, was doing but little when I was there, as it does not belong to the same proprietors. On the night of my arrival they had just completed the work of pumping the water out of the San Nicholas shaft, famous for the immense amount of silver taken from it in the early period of the mining history of Mexico.
Mounted on a good horse, and followed by a lackey, I rode up the zigzag carriage-road which the English company constructed a quarter of a century since in order to convey their immense steam machinery to the top of the mountain, some seven miles distant. This road is still kept in a good state of repair, and forms a romantic drive for those who keep carriages in the mountains. The sun was shining upon the cultivated hills and rolling lands far below us as we jogged along our winding way up the mountain. At every turn in the road new beauties presented themselves. But it was getting too chilly for moralizing, and both lackey and I were pleased when we reached the village upon the top of the mountain, which bears the name of Real del Monte. The house of entertainment here is kept by an English woman, who seems to be a part of the mining establishment. While in her domicile, I found no occasion to regret that I was again elevated into a cold latitude.
THE MINING MANIA.
More than thirty years have passed since that second South Sea delusion, the Anglo-Spanish American mining fever, broke out in England. It surpassed a thousand-fold the wildest of all the New York and California mining and quartz mining organizations of the last five years. Prudent financiers in London ran stark mad in calculating the dividends they must unavoidably realize upon investments in a business to be carried on in a distant country, and managed and controlled by a debating society or board of directors in London. Money was advanced with almost incredible recklessness, and agents were posted off with all secrecy to be first to secure from the owner of some abandoned mine the right to work it before the agent of some other company should arrive on the ground. No mine was to be looked at that was not named in the volumes of Humboldt, and any mine therein named was valued above all price. In the end, some $50,000,000 of English capital ran out, and was used up in Mexico. It was one of those periodical manias that regularly seize a commercial people once in ten years, and for which there is no accounting, and no remedy but to let it have its way and work out its own cure in the ruin of thousands. It is the same in our own country.[74]
DESCENT INTO A MINE.
After a hearty breakfast at the tavern, I called at the office, or, as it is here called, "the Grand House" (Casa Grande), and was introduced by Mr. Auld, the director, to the foreman, who took me to the dressing-room, where I was stripped, and clad in the garb of a miner except the boots, which were all too short for my feet. My rig was an odd one; a skull-cap formed like a fireman's, a miner's coat and pants, and my own calf-skin boots. But in California I had got used to uncouth attire, and now thought nothing of such small matters. We therefore walked on without comments to the house built over the great shaft, where my good-natured English companion, the foreman, stopped me to complete my equipment, which consisted of a lighted tallow candle stuck in a candlestick of soft mud, and pressed till it adhered to the front of my miner's hat. Having fixed a similar appendage to his own hat and to the hat of the servant that was to follow us, we were considered fully equipped for descending the mine.
While standing at the top of the shaft, I was astonished at the size and perfect finish of a steam-pump that had been imported from England by the late English mining company. With the assistance of balancing weights, the immense arms of the engine lifted, with mathematical precision, two square timbers, the one spliced out to the length of a thousand, the other twelve hundred feet, which fell back again by their own weight: these were the pumping-rods, which lifted the water four hundred feet to the mouth of a tunnel, oradit, which carried it a mile and a quarter through the mountain, and discharged it in the creek above the stamping-mill. There is a smaller pump, which works occasionally, when the volume of water in the mines is too great for the power of a single pump.
A trap-door being lifted, we began to descend by small ladders that reached from floor to floor in the shaft, or, rather, in the half of the shaft. The whole shaft was perhaps fifteen or twenty feet square, with sides formed of solid masonry, where the rock happened to be soft, while in other parts it consisted of natural porphyry rock cut smooth. Half of this shaft was divided off by a partition, which extended the whole distance from the top to the bottom of the mine. Through this the materials used in the work were let down, and the ore drawn up in large sacks, consisting each of the skin of an ox. The other half of the shaft contained the two pumping timbers, and numerous floorings at short distances; from one to another of these ran ladders, by which men were continually ascending and descending, at the risk of falling only a few feet at the utmost. The descent from platform to platform was an easy one, while the little walk upon the platform relieved the muscles exhausted by climbing down. With no great fatigue I got down a thousand feet, where our farther progress was stopped by the water that filled the lower galleries.
Galleries are passages running off horizontally from the shaft, either cut through the solid porphyry to intersect some vein, or else the space which a vein once occupied is fitted up for a gallery by receiving a wooden floor and a brick arch over head. They are the passages that lead to others, and to transverse galleries and veins, which, in so old a mine as this, are very numerous. When a vein sufficiently rich to warrant working is struck, it is followed through all its meanderings as long as it pays for digging. The opening made in following it is, of course, as irregular in form and shape as the vein itself. The loose earth and rubbish taken out in following it is thrown into some abandoned opening or gallery, so that nothing is lifted to the surface but the ore. Sometimes several gangs of hands will be working upon the same vein, a board and timber floor only separating one set from another. When I have added to this description that this business of digging out veins has continued here for near three hundred years, it can well be conceived that this mountain ridge has become a sort of honey-comb.
THE MINERS.
When our party had reached the limit of descent, we turned aside into a gallery, and made our way among gangs of workmen, silently pursuing their daily labor in galleries and chambers reeking with moisture, while the water trickled down on every side on its way to the common receptacle at the bottom. Here we saw English carpenters dressing timbers for flooring by the light of tallow candles that burned in soft mud candlesticks adhering to the rocky walls of the chamber. Men were industriously digging upon the vein, others disposing of the rubbish, while convicts were trudging along under heavy burdens of ore, which they supported on their backs by a broad strap across their foreheads. As we passed among these well-behaved gangs of men, I was a little startled by the foreman remarking that one of those carriers had been convicted of killing ten men, and was under sentence of hard labor for life. Far from there being any thing forbidding in the appearance of these murderers, now that they were beyond the reach of intoxicating drink, they bore the ordinary subdued expression of the Meztizo. According to custom, they lashed me to a stanchion as an intruder; but, upon the foreman informing them that I would pay the usual forfeit of cigaritos on arriving at the station-house, they good-naturedly relieved me. Then we journeyed on and on, until my powers of endurance could sustain no more. We sat down to rest, and to gather strength for a still longer journey. At length we set out again, sometimes climbing up, sometimes climbing down; now stopping to examine different specimens of ores that reflected back the glare of our lights with dazzling brilliancy, and to look at the endless varieties in the appearance of the rock that filled the spaces in the porphyry matrix. Then we walked for a long way on the top of the aqueduct of the adit, until we at last reached a vacant shaft, through which we were drawn up and landed in the prison-house, from whence we walked to the station-house, where we were dressed in our own clothes again.
REFINING SILVER.
When my underground wanderings were ended, and dinner eaten, it was too late in the day to visit the refining works; but on the next morning, bright and early, I was in the saddle, on my way to visit the different establishments connected with this mine. First, upon the river, at the mouth of the adit, was a stamping-mill, where gangs of stamps were playing in troughs, and reducing the hard ore to a coarse powder. A little way farther down the stream the ore was ground, and then, in blast ovens or furnaces, was heated until all the baser metals in the ore became charged with oxygen to such a degree that they would not unite with quicksilver. The ore was then carried and placed in the bottom of large casks, and water and quicksilver were added, and then they were set rolling by machinery for several days, until the silver had formed an amalgam with the mercury, while the baser metals in the ore were disengaged from the silver. The whole mass being now poured out into troughs, the scoria was washed off from the amalgam, which was gathered and put into a stout leathern bag with a cloth bottom, and the unabsorbed mercury drained out. The amalgam, resembling lead in appearance, being now cut up into cakes, and placed under an immense retort, fire was applied; the mercury, in form of vapor, was driven through a hole in the bottom of the platform into water, where it was condensed, while the silver remained pure in the retort. This is called the barrel process, and is used for certain kinds of ore.
I had come self-introduced to the Real del Monte, but that had not prevented my receiving the accustomed hospitality of the establishment. A groom and two of their best horses were at my service during my stay. As the weather was fine, and the roads of the first class of English carriage-ways, I heartily enjoyed the ride down the mountain gorge until it opened upon the broad plain where the second refining establishment, that of Vincente, is situated. Except that the iron floors of their blast ovens were made to revolve while in a state of red heat, all was substantially the same as at the last place. Following the meanderings of the stream, I had been gradually descending from the sharp air of early spring to the more appropriate temperature of the tropics, as I had occasion to notice in looking into the fine garden of the English director, which exhibited both the fertilizing effects of irrigation upon English flowers, and the advantages of tropical heat upon native varieties.
CHAPTER XXXII.
A Visit to the Refining-mills.—The Falls and basaltic Columns of Regla.—How a Title is acquired to Silver Mines.—The Story of Peter Terreros, Count of Regla.—The most successful of Miners.—Silver obtained by fusing the Ore.—Silver "benefited" upon the Patio.—The Tester of the Patio.—The chemical Processes employed.—The Heirs of the Count of Regla.—The Ruin caused by Civil War.—The History of the English Company.
We rode along the stone road across the plain, passing now a number of English-made wagons laden with stamped ore for Regla, and then a drove of cargo-donkeys trudging along under the weight of bags filled with the rich ore of Hakal. Now and then, too, we encountered American army-wagons converted to peaceful employment, and adding to the material wealth of Mexico. But our ride was not a long one before we reached Regla, the utmost limit of our journeyings, a distance of twelve miles from the "Real." Here the first salutation from the English gentleman at the head of the establishment was that breakfast was waiting, as it was now eleven o'clock, and we must not visit the works upon an empty stomach. My surprise at this unlooked-for hospitality was a little diminished when I learned that all these entertainments of strangers are at the company's expense.
THE FALLS OF REGLA.
Thepatio, or open yard of Regla, on which the principal portion of the ores of the Real del Monte company are "benefited," or, as we should say, extracted, is situated deep down in abarranca, where both water-power and intense heat can be obtained to facilitate the process of separation. The immense amount of mason-work here expended in the erection of massive walls would make an imposing appearance if they had been built up in the open plain; but here they are so overshadowed by the mason-work of nature that they sink into insignificance in comparison. The bank, some two hundred feet high, of solid rock, as it approaches the waterfall on either side, has the appearance of being supported by natural buttresses of basaltic columns—columns closely joined together and placed erect by the hand of nature's master-builder. Still, all would have been stiff and formal had the sides of thebarrancabeen lined only with perpendicular columns; but broken and displaced pillars are piled in every conceivable position against the front, while a vine with brilliant leaves had run to every fissure and spread itself out to enjoy the sunshine. The little stream that had burst its way through the upright columns and over the broken fragments, fell into a perfect basin of basalt, heightening immensely the attractions of the spot. I sat down upon a fallen column, and for a long time continued to contemplate the unexpected scene, of which, at that time, I had read nothing. There was such a mingling of the rich vegetation of the hot country with the rocky ornaments of this pretty waterfall that I could never grow weary of admiring the combined grandeur and beauty of the place, from which Peter Terreros derived his title of Count of Regla.
Peter Terreros, the first Count of Regla, became one of the rich men of the last century in consequence of a lucky mining adventure. In olden times the water in the Real del Monte mines had been lifted out of the mouth of the Santa Brigeda and other shafts in bulls' hides carried up on a windlass. When near the surface, this simple method of getting the water out of a mine has great advantages on account of its cheapness, and is now extensively employed in Mexican mines. But after a certain depth had been reached, the head of water could no longer be kept down by this process, and, in consequence, the Real del Monte was abandoned about the beginning of the last century, and became a complete ruin; for no wreck is more complete than that which water causes when it once gets possession of a mine, and mingles into one mass floating timbers, loosened earth, rubbish, and soft and fallen rock. By the mining laws of Mexico, the title to a mine is lost by abandoning and ceasing to work it. It becomes a waif open to the enterprise of any one who may "re-denounce" it. The title to the soil in Mexico, as in California, carries no title to the gold and silver mineral that may be contained in the land. The precious metals are not only regarded in law as treasure-trove, but they carry with them to the lucky discoverer the right to enter upon another person's land, and to appropriate so much of the land as is necessary to avail himself of his prize. Colonel Frémont's Mariposa claim, and all other California land claims, are subject to this legal condition.
PETER TERREROS.
Peter Terreros, then a man of limited means, conceived the idea of draining this abandoned mine by means of a tunnel or adit (socabon) through the rock, one mile and a quarter in length, from the level of the stream till it should strike the Santa Brigeda shaft. Upon this enterprise he toiled with varied success from 1750 until 1762, when he completed his undertaking, and also struck abonanza, which continued for twelve years to yield an amount of silver which in our day appears to be fabulous. The veins which he struck from time to time, as he advanced with hissocabon, furnished means to keep alive his enterprise. When he reached the main shaft, he had a ruin to clear out and rebuild, which was a more costly undertaking than the building of a king's palace. Yet hisbonanzanot only furnished all the means for a system of lavish expenditure upon the mines and refining-works, but from his surplus profits he laid out half a million annually in the purchase of plantations, or six millions of dollars in the twelve years. This is equal to about 500,000 pounds' weight of silver. Besides doing this, he loaned to the king a million of dollars, which has never been paid, and built and equipped two ships of the line, and presented them to his sovereign.
The humble shop-keeper, Peter Terreros, after such displays of munificence, was ennobled by the title of Count of Regla. Among the common people he is the subject of more fables than was Crœsus of old. When his children were baptized, so the story goes, the procession walked upon bars of silver. By way of expressing his gratitude for the title conferred upon him, he sent an invitation to the king to visit him at his mine, assuring his majesty that if he would confer on him such an exalted favor, his majesty's feet should not tread upon the ground while he was in the New World. Wherever he should alight from his carriage it should be upon a pavement of silver, and the places where he lodged should be lined with the same precious metal. Anecdotes of this kind are innumerable, which, of course, amount to no more than showing that in his own time his wealth was proverbial, and demonstrate that in popular estimation he stood at the head of that large class of miners whom the wise king ennobled as a reward for successful mining adventures, and that he was accounted the richest miner in the vice-kingdom. The state and magnificence which he oftentimes displayed surpassed that of the Vice-king. This, in no way embarrassed an estate, the largest ever accumulated by one individual in a single enterprise.
Count Peter is estimated to have expended two and a half millions of dollars upon the buildings constituting the refining establishment of Regla, which goes under the general designation of thepatio. Why his walls were built so thick, or why so many massive arches should have been constructed, is an enigma to the present generation, as they could by no means have been intended for a fortress down in abarranca.
But let us go in and examine the different methods of "benefiting" silver here applied. The ores from the Rosario shaft of the Hakal mine of Pachuca are here stamped and ground, and then thrown into a furnace, after having been mixed with lime, which in fire increases the heat; while upon the opentortawe shall see that lime is used to cool the mass. Litharge (oxide of lead) is added, and the mass is burned until the litharge is decomposed, the lead uniting with the silver and the oxygen entering into the slag, into which the baser metals, or scoria in the ore, have been formed. This is cast out at the bottom of the furnace. The mass of molten lead and silver is drawn off, and placed in a large oven with a rotary bottom, into which tongues of flame are continually driven until the lead in the compound has become once more oxydized, forming litharge, and the silver is left in a pure state. This is the most simple method of purifying, or "benefiting" silver.
BENEFITING THE ORE.
A little beyond the furnace is a series of tubs, built of blocks from broken columns of basalt. In the centre of each revolves a shaft with four arms, to each of which is fastened a block of basalt, that is dragged on the stone bottom of the tub, where broken ore mixed with water is ground to the finest paste. Here the chemical process of "benefiting" commences. A bed is prepared upon the paved floor (patio) in the yard, in the same manner as a mortar bed is prepared to receive quicklime dissolved in water. In the same way is poured out the semi-liquid paste. This is called atorta, and contains about 45,000 lbs. Upon this liquid mass four and a halfcargasof 300 lbs. of salt is spread, and then a coating of blue vitriol (sulphate of copper) is laid over the whole, and the tramping by mules commences. If the mass is found to be too hot for the advantageous working of the process, then lime in sufficient quantities is added to cool it; and if too cool, then iron pyrites (sulphate of iron) is added. The mules are then turned upon the bed, and for a single day it is mixed most thoroughly together by tramping and by turning it over by the shovel. On the second day 750 lbs. of quicksilver are added to thetorta, and then the tramping is resumed.
The most important personage, not even excepting the director, is called "the tester;" for the condition of the ores varies so much, that experience alone can determine the mode of proceeding with each separatetorta, and upon the tester's judgment depends oftentimes the question whether a mining enterprise, involving millions of dollars, shall prove a profitable or unprofitable adventure. Perhaps he can not read or write, though daily engaged in carrying on, empirically, the most difficult of chemical processes. To him is intrusted the entire control of the most valuable article employed in mining—the quicksilver. He is constantly testing the varioustortasspread out upon thepatio; to one he determines that lime must be added; to another, an opposite process must be applied by adding iron pyrites. When all is ready, with his own hands he applies the quicksilver, which he carries in a little cloth bag, through the pores of which he expresses the mercury as he walks over and over thetorta, much after the manner that seed is sown with us. The tester determines when the silver has all been collected and amalgamated with the mercury. Whether the tramping process and the turning by shovels shall continue for six weeks or for only three, is decided by him. When he decides that it is prepared for washing, the mass is transported to an immense washing machine, which is propelled by water, where the base substances are all washed from the amalgam, and then the amalgam is resolved into its original elements of silver and quicksilver by fire, as already explained, with the loss of about seventy-five to one hundred pounds of mercury upon eachtorta.
Let us now run over the many chemical processes that have been resorted to in order to separate the silver from the ore. The roll-brimstone, that has been procured in Durango, or in the volcano of Popocatapetl, is bought up at the mint in the city of Mexico, where it is burned in a room lined with lead, and into which water is jetted until the smoke of the burning brimstone is condensed. This water of sulphur is then carefully collected, and distilled in a boiler of platinum, on which sulphur can not act. The sulphuric acid obtained by this distillation is used to separate the gold that is found in the silver bars from silver. This sometimes amounts to ten per cent. The acid dissolves the silver, but does not act upon the gold, which is thus separated from the silver. The sulphate of silver is drawn off and poured upon plates of copper, by which means the silver is precipitated, and sulphate of copper, or blue vitriol, is produced, which, not being of use in the mint, is sold to the Real del Monte Company, where it is employed in obtaining silver. The process by which the company obtain their salt has been already stated, while the lime they use is burned upon the mountains. After all these hard and laborious processes, only from five to ten per cent. of silver is obtained, except in cases ofbonanzas, which shows that silver mines can be profitably worked only in those countries where labor commands the lowest standard of wages.
THE HEIRS OF REGLA.
The heirs of the Count Peter inherited his accumulated treasures, his purchased estates, his title, and his prospects of future success in mining, which were as brilliant as they had been in his lifetime. They never dreamed of financial embarrassments in the midst of accumulations of wealth which surpassed the wildest of Oriental romances. They forgot that their wealth rested upon the perfect security which they inherited from the wise and virtuous government of Carlos III., of blessed memory; that he it was who had put out the fires of the Inquisition, and so curtailed the power of the priests that they could no longer plunder with impunity, or rob the Terreros of the fruits of their father's enterprise by threatening them with the censure of the Church, which, in the reign of a feeble king, had a significant meaning. The new code of mining laws, the cheapness of quicksilver, and the opening of commerce, had all combined to make their fortune, which they might lose in a moment if the heir to the throne should prove an idiot, as was most likely, and priests should again usurp the control of affairs, and play their old game of plundering the rich while they excited the populace.
Fortunately for the family of Terreros and the many successful mining families of that period, Charles IV. was not quite so much of an idiot as his grandfather or his great-grandfather had been, and though the Inquisitors resumed their fires, yet it was with such comparative moderation as not to interfere seriously with the progress of that prosperity to which Carlos III. had given an impulse. The Countess of Regla still sported the richest jewels to be found in New Spain, and her sister's coronet was the envy of all the ladies of the court. But the insurrection of Hidalgo came upon them in the midst of prosperity, overwhelming alike the rich and the poor. The large Spanish capitals began to be withdrawn from the country, the plantations were broken up, and the mines, abandoned by their laborers, soon fell to ruin; and they who had been baptized in the midst of the most ostentatious display of wealth, found themselves pinched to sustain their ordinary expenses.
THE REAL DEL MONTE.
The Terreros family kept their title good to the Real del Monte by retaining a few workmen about the premises; but it was substantially abandoned for twenty-five years before the English Real del Monte Company took possession. In the space of two years this company had cleared out and rebuilt the adit by working gangs of hands night and day. Another party, engaged upon the shafts, arrived at the adit level at the same time with the workmen upon the drain. A third party, engaged in making and repairing a carriage-road from the sea to the mine, had completed their labors; while a fourth party, in charge of machinery and steam-power apparatus enough to equip a Cornish mine of the largest class, had arrived at the mine. In this fourfold, and much of it useless labor, the company had exhibited untiring activity, while they exhausted all their capital without realizing the return of a single dollar. But they derived rich hopes from reading the story of Peter Terreros, and they continued to hope on and hope ever, for a period of twenty-five years longer, when they ceased to exist. The story of this company is summed up in saying that they expended upon this vast enterprise the sum of $20,000,000, and realized from it $16,000,000. They disposed of all their interests here for about what their materials were worth as old iron, and the present proprietors enjoy the fruits of their labors at a cost of less than a million of dollars, with a fair prospect of yet realizing from their speculation as large a treasure as that acquired by Peter Terreros, the first Count of Regla.
Having thus described with some minuteness one of the most extensive silver mines in the world, where an average of 5000 men and unnumbered animals are employed, it will not be necessary to go into details as we notice the many other celebrated mines of Mexico.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Toluca.—Queretaro, Guanajuato, and Zacatecas.—Fresnillo.—"Romancing."—A lucky Priest.—San Luis Potosi.—The Valenciana at Guanajuato.—Under-mining.—A Name of Blasphemy.—The Los Rayas.—Immense Sums taken from Los Rayas.—Warlike Indians in Zacatecas.
A stage runs daily from the city of Mexico by Tacubaya and the Desierto to the beautiful valley and city of Toluca. This town is greatly indebted for its present celebrity to successful mining adventures. Its Cathedral is a monument of the munificent liberality of the Frenchman Laborde, whose fortune was ever unequal to his generosity. We have spoken already of the almost Oriental magnificence displayed in the famous garden which he built and adorned at Cuarnavaca. After spending the wealth acquired from thebonanzaof Tasco, he started off in search of new adventures and a new fortune. Being again successful, he made Toluca the beneficiary of his princely liberality. The celebrated Cathedral of that city, and all its ornaments, are the proofs of his munificence. When his third fortune was exhausted, the fickle goddess forsook him, and he who had three times been raised from nothing to the condition of a millionaire, came in his old age to the archbishop for relief from his poverty. This relief he obtained by selling the jewels he had once bestowed upon the Church. Such often are the vicissitudes in the life of a successful miner. I can not notice here the many interesting objects gathered as I would wish to do, nor have I space for a description of the beautiful mountain scenery about Toluca.
MIDDLE STATES OF MEXICO.
The middle states of Mexico, Guanajuata, Zacatecas, Durango, and San Luis, are deserving of a more extended notice than my limited space will permit. There is little of war or romance to recount in the history of any of them. Their story is made up of notices of silver mines, and times of greatbonanzasand cattle-raising. Here the population is mostly white, made up of the hardy peasantry from Biscay. The Indians on the high table-lands were too hardy to be reduced to slavery: the result is the same here as in Chili. The two races have not extensively intermixed, as the Indians were driven northward, where, for a period of three hundred years, they have, in a measure, maintained their independence, and have so much improved in the art of war that they are able to return again and fight for the homes of their ancestors. The white inhabitants of these states are more cleanly in their habits, and more industrious than the Southern people. The little state of Queretaro has little to boast but its agriculture, but to the north of it is a country of mines and pasturage.
There was formerly great rivalry between the states of Guanajuato and Zacatecas on the ground of their mining successes. Each in turn has had its season of boasting, for it has happened that, in those years when Guanajuato was most prosperous, Zacatecas was not inbonanza, andvice versa. When I was first in Mexico, San Luz and San Luce, at Guanajuato, were inbonanza, with divers others; and out of $300,000 in silver bars brought down to the city of Mexico, nearly ten per cent. of gold was extracted. But now both thesebonanzashave given out, and the annual product of silver in the State of Guanajuato has fallen off over $2,000,000, while the mines of Zacatecas are in a most flourishing condition, as is shown by the large sum of $1,200,000 being demanded by government for renewing the lease of the mint at Zacatecas.
Fresnillo is the most flourishing of the mines of Zacatecas. This mine was formerly considered of little value. Among its advantages is an American manager, who for many years has aided in the direction of its affairs. On my return from Mexico, I found the road up the Perote covered with wagons laden with portions of a monster steam-engine, the fifth that was to be employed to pump the water from this mine. It seems incredible that so large a sum as $1,000,000 should be required for the freight alone of this new machinery. But, after I had become familiar with the vast scale on which every thing is conducted at a large silver mine, where millions appear as the small dust of the balance, I can credit what my readers might think improbable.[75]
I have often spoken of the peculiarities of peasant life in the country and of thepeonsof the cities. But there is another phase of humble life to be considered—the social state of the mine laborer. Like all men whose wages are very irregular, and subject to the fluctuations which follow mining speculations, they themselves become irregular in their lives. They have all heard of the many instances of persons of as humble condition as themselves accidentally falling upon a princely fortune, and they know, too, what a miraculous change such a discovery makes in the social condition of apeon, for every miner in Zacatecas knows the homely distich:
"Had the metals not been so rich at San Bernabe,Ibarra would not have wed the daughter of Virey."[76]
"Had the metals not been so rich at San Bernabe,Ibarra would not have wed the daughter of Virey."[76]
"Had the metals not been so rich at San Bernabe,
Ibarra would not have wed the daughter of Virey."[76]
In addition to scraps and snatches of songs, the mining laborers have theirromances, which are as wild as theyarnsof the sailor, and have for their almost universal theme the miraculous acquisition and loss of a fortune. The hero possesses princely wealth to-day, though yesterday he was suffering for food, and to-morrow he will be again bereft of all by the fickle turns that Fortune makes in the wheel of destiny. The wildest of our romances never come up to many incidents that have occurred in their own mine; and when they attempt fiction, it is on the pattern of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. I do verily believe that all that class of Arabian tales are but the reproduction of theromancesfrom the Oriental gold-washings.
The most important mines in the State of San Luis Potosi are those near Cuatorce. In the midst of bleak and precipitous mountain ridges is the village of Cuatorce, from which a circuitous mountain road leads to the entrance of the mining shafts, in which more wonderful things have occurred than in the wildest of the "romances." The story of Padre Flores is a familiar one, but will bear repeating.
PADRE FLORES.—CUATORCE.
The padre, being tired of the idle life of a pauper priest, bought, for a small sum, the claim of some still more needy adventurer. After following his small vein a little way, he came to a small cavern containing the ore in a state of decomposition. This, in California, would be called a "rotten vein." With all the difficulties to be encountered in obtaining a fair value for mineral in a crude state, the poor priest realized from his adventure over $3,000,000, which was considered a very fair fortune for an unmitred ecclesiastic.
The Mineral Report, mentioned in the last note, which is so full on the subject Fresnillo, insists that it is a continuation of the formation of Cuatorce and the other mines of San Luis. The mountains at Cuatorce are more dreary, bleak, and barren than in any other of the principal mining districts, as it is more exposed to the storms and tempests from the northeast and from the ocean. It was in this State of San Luis Potosi that Dr. Gardner's quicksilver mine was alleged to exist, and in the ineffectual efforts made to determine its whereabouts our government has become quite familiar with the location of all the worked mines of this state. The mines upon the mountains of Cuatorce are said to have been discovered in 1778 by a negro fiddler, who, being compelled to camp out on his way home from a dance, built a fire upon what proved to be an outcrop of a vein, and, in consequence, found in the morning, among the embers, a piece of virgin silver. It is a doubtful question among those who are anxious about trifles whether the namePotosigiven to this mine, owes its origin to the similarity between the mode of its discovery to that of the celebrated mines of that name in South America, or to the vast amount of silver at one time taken from it.
Guanajuato, when it yielded its six millions a year of silver, besides a fair supply of gold, was one of the most important States in the republic. With every successful speculation, new adventurers were found to invest their capital in resuming the working of abandoned mines, until at last men have become bold enough to undertake, for the third time, the draining of the great shaft of the Valenciana, so famous in the last century. When I was last in Mexico that undertaking was reported to have been accomplished. This mine is on a more magnificent scale than even the Real del Monte. Its central shaft alone cost a million of dollars; and though steam power can not be used, yet it is so dry that horse windlasses can keep it clear of water. Its abandonment in every instance has been in consequence of some insurrectionary chief setting the works of the mine on fire, and not from any deficiency in its product of silver. When I was in Mexico, so little progress had been made in restoring the mine that it was not thought worth visiting. But the most sanguine hopes were entertained that it would again be as productive as in the times when its abundant riches secured for its owner the title of Marquis of Valenciana, though he had worked with his own hands on the shaft which afterward yielded him its millions.
THE MINE OF LOS RAYAS.
Second in importance among the old mines of Guanajuato isLos Rayas. Its history presents a new feature in the mining system of Mexico, not before mentioned, but which is important to a right understanding of the operation of the mining code. The right of discovery gives title to two hundredvarasalong the mine, and to two hundredvaras(about 500 feet) in depth. The consequence of this limitation is, that when a very rich claim is made, there immediately springs up a contest to get below it, and to cut off the lucky discoverer from the lower part of his expected fortune, and he has no means of avoiding such a result but by driving his shaft downward until he reaches a point below his first two hundredvaras, which entitles him to claim another section downward.
This principle is strikingly illustrated in the case of the famous mine of the priest Flores at Cuatorce, which he blasphemously named "the Purse of God the Father,"[77]where there are marks of divers attempts being made to undermine him, though without success. But the case is a different one when thebonanzais upon a high ridge, and it can be undermined by drifting in from a lower level. Then commences a lively contest to determine who can dig the fastest, and make the most rapid progress in this contest of mining and countermining.
The Marquis de los Rayas owes his title and his princely fortune of $11,000,000 to a successful contest of this character. The Santa Amita was inbonanza, yielding an ore so pregnant with gold that the crude mass often sold for its weight in silver.
DEEP MINING.
Contests of this kind are very different from those which used to take place in California some years ago, when twenty feet square was marked off upon the top of a ridge, through which the claimant had to sink his shaft to the base rock on which the gold was supposed to be deposited. When the rock was reached, it was often found difficult to keep the lines that had been marked off on the surface, particularly when the lead grew richer as it approached the border of the claim. Controversies were frequent, and frequently resulted in subterranean quarrels and fights, and, of course, ended in superterranean lawsuits. But the Mexican rival parties were seldom near enough for a fight, and the quarrel ended, as it began, in a contest to determine who could dig the fastest.
Another peculiar feature of deep mining is the construction of the main shafts. A description of the method of construction of one of these I take from Ward's Mexico,[78]a book that is otherwise of little value to a person seeking for information on the subject of mines at Guanajuata, so great has been the revolution there in a few years in the condition of mining affairs: "I know few sights more interesting than the operation of blasting in the shafts of Los Rayas. After each quarryman (barretero) has undermined the portion of rock allotted to him, he is drawn up to the surface; the ropes belonging to the horse-windlasses (malacates) are coiled up, so as to leave every thing clear below, and a man descends, whose business it is to fire the slow matches communicating with the mines below.
"As his chance of escaping the effects of the explosion consists in being drawn up with such rapidity as to be placed beyond the reach of the fragments of rock that are projected into the air, the lightestmalacateis prepared for his use, and two horses are attached to it, selected for their swiftness and courage, and are called the horses ofpegador. The man is let down slowly, carrying with him a light and a small rope, one end of which is held by one of the overseers, who is stationed at the mouth of the shaft. A breathless silence is observed until the signal is given from below by pulling the cord of communication, when the two men by whom the horses are previously held release their heads, and they dash off at full speed until they are stopped either by the noise of the first explosion, or by seeing from the quantity of cord wound round the cylinder of themalacatethat thepegadoris already raised to a height of sixty or seventyvaras[Spanish yards], and is consequently beyond the reach of danger."
The author then goes on to enumerate the risks that attend this calling ofpegador, and the consequent high wages that have to be paid to persons who undertake this perilous office, all of which accidents and adventures must be familiar to those of my readers who have paid any attention to the business of blasting rocks; and as his hairbreadth escapes have nothing in them remarkable, we may conclude this notice of Los Rayas by adding his statement that the king's fifth from this mine, from 1556 to his time, amounted to the snug sum of $17,365,000. He gives only the sum reported, and makes no calculation for the large sums out of which the king was annually cheated at all the mines. That my reader may understand how a sum so apparently incredible as five or eight times seventeen millions of dollars could be taken out of a single mine, he must recollect that Los Rayas was a most productive mine shortly after the Conquest, and that for a century or two it was comparatively of little value, until Mr. José Sardaneta undertook the undermining of the rich mine of Santa Amita in 1740, and that afterward the rich product of the lower levels of the Santa Amita are included in this immense sum.
INDIANS AND SOLDIERS.
There is too much sameness in the details of the histories of the various other important mines of this State and of those in the adjoining State of Durango to justify the lengthening out this chapter, and I will conclude it with giving the substance of a statement I heard the American gentleman make on the subject of Indian depredations in the very centre of the republic, showing the great inconvenience suffered in consequence of the state of insecurity in which the people constantly live. A party of their own Indians, a most degraded band of cowardly vagabonds, that lived not a great way from the city, concluded to personify a company of northern savages, in order more successfully to plunder the inhabitants. With shoutings, these vagabonds rushed into the houses of the people, who were so paralyzed by the very sight of Indians in a hostile attitude, that, without resistance, they suffered them to plunder whatever came within their reach which tempted their cupidity or lust. At length, becoming satiated with liquor and champagne that they had taken from a carrier, they had to retire and camp out for the night. In their retreat they were pursued by a captain and soldiers of the regular army, who, being more numerous than the Indians, exhibited a great deal of courage until they came in sight of the savages, when, all at once, it was concluded to encamp for the night, and to resume the pursuit the next day, when the Indians would be at such a distance that they would not disturb their pursuers by their whooping.