£2,250,000. Even more successful for a time were operations in the district of Sombrerete, where the celebrated Veta Negra mine produced within six months more than 700,000 marks of silver, the ore yielding a net profit of about £1,000,000. To this period belongs the story of the rich miner of Zacatecas, who, on the occasion of his daughter's wedding, ordered the streets from his house to the church to be paved with bricks of silver.
At the time when prospects seemed brightest, the Republican Revolution broke out, and within a few years was swept away the work of centuries. Machinery was destroyed, and the mines filled with water and debris; operations ceased in many localities; elsewhere work was carried out in a random and wasteful manner, and the output was decreased by one-half. Independence achieved, the Government attempted to revive this industry by inviting foreign capital and skill, reducing taxes, and issuing certain regulations. The result was a rush of foreign adventurers, who, under heedless and unskilful management for the most part, retired with loss. The discouragement which followed, together with the disturbing influence of incessant revolutions, fitful changes of administration, and forced contributions, counteracted the effects of introducing superior methods and machinery, so that during the first three decades of Republican rule there was little increase in the yield of precious metals. The total returns for the period 1823—52 have been estimated from the Mint statistics at £80,000,000, or an average of less than £3,000,000 a year. Later, the yield increased considerably, the eleven mints in operation in various parts of the Republic reporting a total coinage for the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1885, of about £5,000,000, the amount varying but slightly during several preceding years.
It may be stated approximately that during the nineteenth century and a portion of the eighteenth, Mexico furnished one-half of the world's supply of silver, in addition to a vast amount of gold, though the latter is by comparison almost
