ern machinery, and after tunneling the mountain in two directions has turned out from fifteen to twenty-five thousands of dollars in silver bullion in a month, with a prospect of doing better when the capacity of his works is increased. Other metals seem to be waiting for energetic miners. Quantities of tin are found in Michoacan and Jalisco, and a ton of this metal was recently brought to the United States from Durango. In the same neighborhood is the famous mountain of magnetic-iron ore—a treasure of which the Aztecs never knew the use, and which the Spaniards were too much occupied with gold-hunting to consider.
Old Mexican mines have entered on a fresh lease of productiveness of late years, and new ones will soon be opened. Already the miner's toil is lightened by modern helps, and men are not used as beasts of burdens. Time was when all these tons of ore were carried up in baskets slung on men's backs and supported by a band across the forehead. The amount of labor required may be imagined when it is said that one of these old shafts pierced the earth's crust to a depth of sixteen hundred feet, and that it annually yielded five hundred tons of silver and one and a half tons of gold.
Except when drunk, the Mexican Indians are taciturn and patient under their burdens, though taught by ages of oppression to be distrustful. They seem to be contented with their lot, though it must be said that as a people they have in them great possibilities of obstinacy. They are slow workers, but faithful and persevering. They look like a conquered people. Their faces are as sad, their hearts as dark and their minds as ignorant as when the sun went down on their tribes three hundred years ago. Their humility is often most touching. The
