and during all this time the Mexicans, who are good miners, and to whom mining has to a certain extent the attractiveness of lottery ventures, have, we may be sure, shrewdly prospected the whole country and have not concealed any of its business opportunities. Capital, furthermore, has not been wanting to them. For, in the early days of the independence of the republic, the idea that the working of old Spanish mines in Mexico promised great profits amounted to almost a "craze" in England; and millions on millions of British capital were poured into the country for such objects; while the mining districts of Cornwall were said to have been half depopulated, through the drain on their skilled workmen to serve in the new enterprises. It is sufficient to say that the results were terribly disastrous.
Many mines in Mexico could be profitably worked, and probably would be, by American capital, if the American tariff on the import of ores did not prevent them from being sent to smelters in the United States. As it is, a considerable quantity of lead and copper ores, rich in gold and silver, are sent from mines in Northern Mexico to points as far distant as Germany for conversion—as freight to Laredo and Corpus Christi, in Texas, and thence as ballast to Europe, at a cost of from sixteen to twenty dollars per ton.
