The greatest obstacle in the way of the successful prosecution and development of the mining industry of Mexico, as also in the case of manufactures, is the scarcity of fuel and water for the generation and application of mechanical power. The impression which an American visitor to one of the great Mexican silver-mines, or reducing-works, at first receives, is almost always that of surprise at the apparent rudeness and shiftlessness of the methods of working. But a further acquaintance soon satisfies him that what is done is the result of long experience, and is the best that probably could be under all the circumstances. Thus, for example, for the purpose of extracting the silver from the ore by amalgamation, the rock, ground to a fine powder and made into a paste with water, is spread out on the floor of a large court, and then worked up, with certain proportions of common salt, sulphate of iron, and quicksilver into a vast mud-pie, by means of troops of broken-down horses or donkeys, which for two or three weeks in succession tramp round and round in the mass—animals and Indian drivers alike sinking leg-deep in the paste at every movement. When the amalgamation is completed, it is brought in vessels or baskets, rather than with wheelbarrows, to washing-tanks, where half-naked men and boys further "puddle" it until the metal falls to the bottom, and the refuse runs away. The process is hard, and even cruel, for both man and beast, and is not expeditious; but it is economical (considered in reference to the cost of other methods involving power), and is effective.
The number of mining properties at present worked in Mexico by American companies is understood to be about forty.
The popular idea that there are a considerable number of old Spanish mines in Mexico which were worked to great profit before the revolution, and then abandoned when their original proprietors were driven from the country, and are now ready to return great profits to whoever will rediscover and reopen them, has probably very little foundation in fact. Sixty-five years have now elapsed since Mexico achieved her independence, 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.
Silver Monometallism.—Until within a very recent period, Mexico has furnished to the world a most curious and interesting example of
