518
MINING, MANUFACTURES, AND FISHERIES.
rendered it necessary to establish other mints, which at one time reached the number of fifteen.[1] After this, only a small quantity of the precious metals reached the city of Mexico. The mint and refinery were leased to private persons in 1847 for ten years, and the lease was several times renewed.[2] From 1804 to 1848 the total yield of gold and silver was $768,000,000, and the production from the latter year to June 30, 1877, $702,000,000,[3] making $4,470,000,000. By the fourth table of the treasury department showing the coinage of the fiscal year 1877-8, it is seen that the amount of gold coined was $691,998, and of silver $22,084,204, or a
- ↑ There were eleven in 1987; namely, at Álamos, Culiacan, Chihuahua, Durango, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Hermosillo, Mexico, Oajaca, San Luis Potosí, and Zacatecas. Those of Guadalajara, Durango, Chihuahua, and Oajaca were administered for government account. The other seven were leased to private parties. That of Hermosillo was established in 1867, and that of Álamos in 1868. Ramirez, Riqueza Min. de Mex., 47-53; Mex., Mem. Sec. Fomento, 1884, i. 638.
- ↑ In 1866 it was still leased. The mint had been transferred to another building, where the coinage was begin on the 1st of July, 1850. The amount coined there from that date to Dec. 31, 1866, was $64,325,999. Orozco y Berra, Mem. Plano Crud. Mex., 168-71. According to the Balanzas del Comercio, published by the Real Tribunal del Consulado at Vera Cruz for the four years preceding 1810, there were exported $70,862,203, in which sum were represented gold and silver, manufactured and coined, to the value of $54,103,787, all else amounting to $16,758,416. The same document showed that in those four years the mint coined $94,210,201, that is to say, those $16,758,416 multiplied by 5.65, which makes it evident that the gold and silver coined represented six times the amount of all other branches of export. It was proved in the report read before that tribunal in January 24, 1817, that the annual products of all New Spain were $227,911,939, of which the mines yielued $192,192,000, or five sixths of the totality. Mem., Sobre la utilidad é in flujo de la minería en el reino. From Humboldt's official data we gather that the Spanish American colonies produced from 1492 to 1803 gold and silver valued at 4,035,156,000 pesos, registered, and the further sum of 816,000,000 pesos, not registered, making a total of 4,851,156,000 pesos; in which sum the mines of New Spain figured for 2,027,952,000 pesos; and the further sum of 972,048,000 pesos may be added for value not included in those computations, making a grand total of 3,000 millions. It is not known how much gold and silver had been obtained before the Spanish conquest. On one occasion Montezuma gathered the value of 7,000,000 pesos to be sent to Spain.
- ↑ Denson's Mem., in Busto, Estadist. Rep. Mex., ii. pt 2, 12; Informe de Comisio. gen de tierras, in Ib. The coinage system was reorganized by decree of Nov. 27, 1867. Under this law the decimal system was established. The monetary unit was declared to be as heretofore, the silver peso or dollar, of the weight of 27 grams and 73 miligrams, and value of 100 centavos. It was to be coined in pieces of one dollar, and 50, 25, and 10 and 5 centavos. The gold coin was to be in pieces of 20 pesos with the weight of 33 grams, and 841 miligrams. There are also pieces of 10, 5, 212, and 1 dollar. The copper cent has the weight of 8 grams. Mex., Recop. Ley., i. 425-9.
