SECTION IV.
It is to Baron Humbolt's Essai Politique that Europe is indebted for whatever knowledge it now possesses of the peculiarities by which Mexico is distinguished as a Mining country. How little was known before his time may be inferred from the fact, that Robertson, celebrated, as he so justly is, for the diligence and accuracy of his researches, in his view of the Colonial Policy of Spain, confounds, every where, the climate of Mexico with that of Peru and Chilé, and deplores the mortality occasioned amongst the natives, (whom he supposes to have been compelled to work in the mines,) "by the sudden transition from the sultry climate of the valleys, to the chill, penetrating air, peculiar to high land in the torrid zone." I need hardly state that, the idea is a mistaken one; and that however miserable the lot
