REFINING SILVER.

When my underground wanderings were ended, and dinner eaten, it was too late in the day to visit the refining works; but on the next morning, bright and early, I was in the saddle, on my way to visit the different establishments connected with this mine. First, upon the river, at the mouth of the adit, was a stamping-mill, where gangs of stamps were playing in troughs, and reducing the hard ore to a coa.r.s.e powder. A little way farther down the stream the ore was ground, and then, in blast ovens or furnaces, was heated until all the baser metals in the ore became charged with oxygen to such a degree that they would not unite with quicksilver. The ore was then carried and placed in the bottom of large casks, and water and quicksilver were added, and then they were set rolling by machinery for several days, until the silver had formed an amalgam with the mercury, while the baser metals in the ore were disengaged from the silver. The whole ma.s.s being now poured out into troughs, the scoria was washed off from the amalgam, which was gathered and put into a stout leathern bag with a cloth bottom, and the unabsorbed mercury drained out. The amalgam, resembling lead in appearance, being now cut up into cakes, and placed under an immense retort, fire was applied; the mercury, in form of vapor, was driven through a hole in the bottom of the platform into water, where it was condensed, while the silver remained pure in the retort. This is called the barrel process, and is used for certain kinds of ore.

I had come self-introduced to the Real del Monte, but that had not prevented my receiving the accustomed hospitality of the establishment.

A groom and two of their best horses were at my service during my stay.

As the weather was fine, and the roads of the first cla.s.s of English carriage-ways, I heartily enjoyed the ride down the mountain gorge until it opened upon the broad plain where the second refining establishment, that of Vincente, is situated. Except that the iron floors of their blast ovens were made to revolve while in a state of red heat, all was substantially the same as at the last place.

Following the meanderings of the stream, I had been gradually descending from the sharp air of early spring to the more appropriate temperature of the tropics, as I had occasion to notice in looking into the fine garden of the English director, which exhibited both the fertilizing effects of irrigation upon English flowers, and the advantages of tropical heat upon native varieties.

[72] A very rich portion of a vein is called a _bonanza_.

[73] Mr. Thomas Auld, the director of the company, furnished me very accurate data in relation to affairs, but these are with my other losses at New Orleans.

[74] Before leaving California, a young man in my office, who had been using some of my money which he could not replace, proposed to repay me in a certificate printed in red ink, which certificate declared that I had paid $2000 toward the capital stock of ---- Mining Company; Capital Stock, $250,000; signed Col. ----, President, a gentleman a little in arrears at his boarding-house, and my defaulting young man was secretary. Rather an unpromising show that, as the property consisted of a tavern, built of canvas upon Colonel Fremont's Maraposa grant, on the principle of squatter sovereignty. Near by the squatter had dug a promising hole, and if only money and machinery could be had, _perhaps_ he might realize something from it. The young man a.s.sured me that they had an agent in New York negotiating for machinery, and in a few months they would be able to declare dividends. Biting my lips to suppress a hearty laugh, I put the paper printed with red ink into my pocket.

On my arrival in New York, I was thunderstruck at seeing a gilded sign stuck up on the Merchants' Exchange: "---- MINING COMPANY OFFICE." Not over-troubled by modesty, I ventured in, and inquired if that machinery had been sent out. I was requested to be seated in a fine cushioned chair. As I love entertainment, I sat down, and took a survey of the desks, the Brussels carpet, the ledgers, and the piles of pamphlets, which clearly demonstrated that a man would get his money back many times over before he paid it in. It seemed strange how all this could he supported on the supposed future earnings of a hole in the ground. The Board of Directors a.s.sembled. Many of them, I was a.s.sured, were the leading men of New York, and things went off with all solemnity. When all was ready, an immense piece of the richest gold quartz was taken from a desk, such as used to be sold at good prices in San Francisco for this very purpose. But not a man in that august a.s.sembly dreamed of the manner in which such things are gotten up, except perhaps the said agent sent out to get machinery, but now figuring as a director. I was easily prevailed on to sign an argumentative certificate, and was shown one signed by Robert J. Walker on a much worse hole in the ground than this. I was also informed that New York was not the proper market, which I understand to mean that machinery could not be obtained in New York on the credit of a quartz vein; and in London they would not look at a scheme that did not embrace a million at least, said the agent aforesaid. Therefore he proposed to give me an engraved certificate, declaring that I had paid $8000, which of course I readily accepted when I found that there was no machinery in the case, and that all I had to rest my engraved certificate upon was the one hundredth part of the said hole in the ground, with a doubtful t.i.tle. The last I heard of this agent was, that he was traveling with his wife upon the Rhine. Whether he was in search of machinery or not, I did not stop to inquire.

Instead of the above being an extraordinary case, I understand that it is about a fair average of the California gold schemes that have been brought upon the stock-market of New York. If the papers are only drawn up in the proper form, the most prudent men in Wall Street are sometimes found to embark their capital before the question has ever been settled whether gold can be successfully obtained from quartz in California.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

A Visit to the Refining-mills.--The Falls and basaltic Columns of Regla.--How a t.i.tle is acquired to Silver Mines.--The Story of Peter Terreros, Count of Regla.--The most successful of Miners.--Silver obtained by fusing the Ore.--Silver "benefited" upon the Patio.--The Tester of the Patio.--The chemical Processes employed.--The Heirs of the Count of Regla.--The Ruin caused by Civil War.--The History of the English Company.

We rode along the stone road across the plain, pa.s.sing now a number of English-made wagons laden with stamped ore for Regla, and then a drove of cargo-donkeys trudging along under the weight of bags filled with the rich ore of Hakal. Now and then, too, we encountered American army-wagons converted to peaceful employment, and adding to the material wealth of Mexico. But our ride was not a long one before we reached Regla, the utmost limit of our journeyings, a distance of twelve miles from the "Real." Here the first salutation from the English gentleman at the head of the establishment was that breakfast was waiting, as it was now eleven o'clock, and we must not visit the works upon an empty stomach. My surprise at this unlooked-for hospitality was a little diminished when I learned that all these entertainments of strangers are at the company's expense.

THE FALLS OF REGLA.

The _patio_, or open yard of Regla, on which the princ.i.p.al portion of the ores of the Real del Monte company are "benefited," or, as we should say, extracted, is situated deep down in a _barranca_, where both water-power and intense heat can be obtained to facilitate the process of separation. The immense amount of mason-work here expended in the erection of ma.s.sive walls would make an imposing appearance if they had been built up in the open plain; but here they are so overshadowed by the mason-work of nature that they sink into insignificance in comparison. The bank, some two hundred feet high, of solid rock, as it approaches the waterfall on either side, has the appearance of being supported by natural b.u.t.tresses of basaltic columns--columns closely joined together and placed erect by the hand of nature's master-builder. Still, all would have been stiff and formal had the sides of the _barranca_ been lined only with perpendicular columns; but broken and displaced pillars are piled in every conceivable position against the front, while a vine with brilliant leaves had run to every fissure and spread itself out to enjoy the sunshine. The little stream that had burst its way through the upright columns and over the broken fragments, fell into a perfect basin of basalt, heightening immensely the attractions of the spot. I sat down upon a fallen column, and for a long time continued to contemplate the unexpected scene, of which, at that time, I had read nothing. There was such a mingling of the rich vegetation of the hot country with the rocky ornaments of this pretty waterfall that I could never grow weary of admiring the combined grandeur and beauty of the place, from which Peter Terreros derived his t.i.tle of Count of Regla.

Peter Terreros, the first Count of Regla, became one of the rich men of the last century in consequence of a lucky mining adventure. In olden times the water in the Real del Monte mines had been lifted out of the mouth of the Santa Brigeda and other shafts in bulls' hides carried up on a windla.s.s. When near the surface, this simple method of getting the water out of a mine has great advantages on account of its cheapness, and is now extensively employed in Mexican mines. But after a certain depth had been reached, the head of water could no longer be kept down by this process, and, in consequence, the Real del Monte was abandoned about the beginning of the last century, and became a complete ruin; for no wreck is more complete than that which water causes when it once gets possession of a mine, and mingles into one ma.s.s floating timbers, loosened earth, rubbish, and soft and fallen rock. By the mining laws of Mexico, the t.i.tle to a mine is lost by abandoning and ceasing to work it. It becomes a waif open to the enterprise of any one who may "re-denounce" it. The t.i.tle to the soil in Mexico, as in California, carries no t.i.tle to the gold and silver mineral that may be contained in the land. The precious metals are not only regarded in law as treasure-trove, but they carry with them to the lucky discoverer the right to enter upon another person's land, and to appropriate so much of the land as is necessary to avail himself of his prize. Colonel Fremont's Mariposa claim, and all other California land claims, are subject to this legal condition.

PETER TERREROS.

Peter Terreros, then a man of limited means, conceived the idea of draining this abandoned mine by means of a tunnel or adit (_socabon_) through the rock, one mile and a quarter in length, from the level of the stream till it should strike the Santa Brigeda shaft. Upon this enterprise he toiled with varied success from 1750 until 1762, when he completed his undertaking, and also struck a _bonanza_, which continued for twelve years to yield an amount of silver which in our day appears to be fabulous. The veins which he struck from time to time, as he advanced with his _socabon_, furnished means to keep alive his enterprise. When he reached the main shaft, he had a ruin to clear out and rebuild, which was a more costly undertaking than the building of a king's palace. Yet his _bonanza_ not only furnished all the means for a system of lavish expenditure upon the mines and refining-works, but from his surplus profits he laid out half a million annually in the purchase of plantations, or six millions of dollars in the twelve years. This is equal to about 500,000 pounds' weight of silver. Besides doing this, he loaned to the king a million of dollars, which has never been paid, and built and equipped two ships of the line, and presented them to his sovereign.

The humble shop-keeper, Peter Terreros, after such displays of munificence, was enn.o.bled by the t.i.tle of Count of Regla. Among the common people he is the subject of more fables than was Croesus of old. When his children were baptized, so the story goes, the procession walked upon bars of silver. By way of expressing his grat.i.tude for the t.i.tle conferred upon him, he sent an invitation to the king to visit him at his mine, a.s.suring his majesty that if he would confer on him such an exalted favor, his majesty's feet should not tread upon the ground while he was in the New World. Wherever he should alight from his carriage it should be upon a pavement of silver, and the places where he lodged should be lined with the same precious metal. Anecdotes of this kind are innumerable, which, of course, amount to no more than showing that in his own time his wealth was proverbial, and demonstrate that in popular estimation he stood at the head of that large cla.s.s of miners whom the wise king enn.o.bled as a reward for successful mining adventures, and that he was accounted the richest miner in the vice-kingdom. The state and magnificence which he oftentimes displayed surpa.s.sed that of the Vice-king. This, in no way embarra.s.sed an estate, the largest ever acc.u.mulated by one individual in a single enterprise.

Count Peter is estimated to have expended two and a half millions of dollars upon the buildings const.i.tuting the refining establishment of Regla, which goes under the general designation of the _patio_. Why his walls were built so thick, or why so many ma.s.sive arches should have been constructed, is an enigma to the present generation, as they could by no means have been intended for a fortress down in a _barranca_.

But let us go in and examine the different methods of "benefiting"

silver here applied. The ores from the Rosario shaft of the Hakal mine of Pachuca are here stamped and ground, and then thrown into a furnace, after having been mixed with lime, which in fire increases the heat; while upon the open _torta_ we shall see that lime is used to cool the ma.s.s. Litharge (oxide of lead) is added, and the ma.s.s is burned until the litharge is decomposed, the lead uniting with the silver and the oxygen entering into the slag, into which the baser metals, or scoria in the ore, have been formed. This is cast out at the bottom of the furnace. The ma.s.s of molten lead and silver is drawn off, and placed in a large oven with a rotary bottom, into which tongues of flame are continually driven until the lead in the compound has become once more oxydized, forming litharge, and the silver is left in a pure state.

This is the most simple method of purifying, or "benefiting" silver.

BENEFITING THE ORE.

A little beyond the furnace is a series of tubs, built of blocks from broken columns of basalt. In the centre of each revolves a shaft with four arms, to each of which is fastened a block of basalt, that is dragged on the stone bottom of the tub, where broken ore mixed with water is ground to the finest paste. Here the chemical process of "benefiting" commences. A bed is prepared upon the paved floor (_patio_) in the yard, in the same manner as a mortar bed is prepared to receive quicklime dissolved in water. In the same way is poured out the semi-liquid paste. This is called a _torta_, and contains about 45,000 lbs. Upon this liquid ma.s.s four and a half _cargas_ of 300 lbs.

of salt is spread, and then a coating of blue vitriol (sulphate of copper) is laid over the whole, and the tramping by mules commences. If the ma.s.s is found to be too hot for the advantageous working of the process, then lime in sufficient quant.i.ties is added to cool it; and if too cool, then iron pyrites (sulphate of iron) is added. The mules are then turned upon the bed, and for a single day it is mixed most thoroughly together by tramping and by turning it over by the shovel.

On the second day 750 lbs. of quicksilver are added to the _torta_, and then the tramping is resumed.

The most important personage, not even excepting the director, is called "the tester;" for the condition of the ores varies so much, that experience alone can determine the mode of proceeding with each separate _torta_, and upon the tester's judgment depends oftentimes the question whether a mining enterprise, involving millions of dollars, shall prove a profitable or unprofitable adventure. Perhaps he can not read or write, though daily engaged in carrying on, empirically, the most difficult of chemical processes. To him is intrusted the entire control of the most valuable article employed in mining--the quicksilver. He is constantly testing the various _tortas_ spread out upon the _patio_; to one he determines that lime must be added; to another, an opposite process must be applied by adding iron pyrites.

When all is ready, with his own hands he applies the quicksilver, which he carries in a little cloth bag, through the pores of which he expresses the mercury as he walks over and over the _torta_, much after the manner that seed is sown with us. The tester determines when the silver has all been collected and amalgamated with the mercury. Whether the tramping process and the turning by shovels shall continue for six weeks or for only three, is decided by him. When he decides that it is prepared for washing, the ma.s.s is transported to an immense washing machine, which is propelled by water, where the base substances are all washed from the amalgam, and then the amalgam is resolved into its original elements of silver and quicksilver by fire, as already explained, with the loss of about seventy-five to one hundred pounds of mercury upon each _torta_.

Let us now run over the many chemical processes that have been resorted to in order to separate the silver from the ore. The roll-brimstone, that has been procured in Durango, or in the volcano of Popocatapetl, is bought up at the mint in the city of Mexico, where it is burned in a room lined with lead, and into which water is jetted until the smoke of the burning brimstone is condensed. This water of sulphur is then carefully collected, and distilled in a boiler of platinum, on which sulphur can not act. The sulphuric acid obtained by this distillation is used to separate the gold that is found in the silver bars from silver. This sometimes amounts to ten per cent. The acid dissolves the silver, but does not act upon the gold, which is thus separated from the silver. The sulphate of silver is drawn off and poured upon plates of copper, by which means the silver is precipitated, and sulphate of copper, or blue vitriol, is produced, which, not being of use in the mint, is sold to the Real del Monte Company, where it is employed in obtaining silver. The process by which the company obtain their salt has been already stated, while the lime they use is burned upon the mountains. After all these hard and laborious processes, only from five to ten per cent. of silver is obtained, except in cases of _bonanzas_, which shows that silver mines can be profitably worked only in those countries where labor commands the lowest standard of wages.

THE HEIRS OF REGLA.

The heirs of the Count Peter inherited his acc.u.mulated treasures, his purchased estates, his t.i.tle, and his prospects of future success in mining, which were as brilliant as they had been in his lifetime. They never dreamed of financial embarra.s.sments in the midst of acc.u.mulations of wealth which surpa.s.sed the wildest of Oriental romances. They forgot that their wealth rested upon the perfect security which they inherited from the wise and virtuous government of Carlos III., of blessed memory; that he it was who had put out the fires of the Inquisition, and so curtailed the power of the priests that they could no longer plunder with impunity, or rob the Terreros of the fruits of their father's enterprise by threatening them with the censure of the Church, which, in the reign of a feeble king, had a significant meaning. The new code of mining laws, the cheapness of quicksilver, and the opening of commerce, had all combined to make their fortune, which they might lose in a moment if the heir to the throne should prove an idiot, as was most likely, and priests should again usurp the control of affairs, and play their old game of plundering the rich while they excited the populace.

Fortunately for the family of Terreros and the many successful mining families of that period, Charles IV. was not quite so much of an idiot as his grandfather or his great-grandfather had been, and though the Inquisitors resumed their fires, yet it was with such comparative moderation as not to interfere seriously with the progress of that prosperity to which Carlos III. had given an impulse. The Countess of Regla still sported the richest jewels to be found in New Spain, and her sister's coronet was the envy of all the ladies of the court. But the insurrection of Hidalgo came upon them in the midst of prosperity, overwhelming alike the rich and the poor. The large Spanish capitals began to be withdrawn from the country, the plantations were broken up, and the mines, abandoned by their laborers, soon fell to ruin; and they who had been baptized in the midst of the most ostentatious display of wealth, found themselves pinched to sustain their ordinary expenses.

THE REAL DEL MONTE.

The Terreros family kept their t.i.tle good to the Real del Monte by retaining a few workmen about the premises; but it was substantially abandoned for twenty-five years before the English Real del Monte Company took possession. In the s.p.a.ce of two years this company had cleared out and rebuilt the adit by working gangs of hands night and day. Another party, engaged upon the shafts, arrived at the adit level at the same time with the workmen upon the drain. A third party, engaged in making and repairing a carriage-road from the sea to the mine, had completed their labors; while a fourth party, in charge of machinery and steam-power apparatus enough to equip a Cornish mine of the largest cla.s.s, had arrived at the mine. In this fourfold, and much of it useless labor, the company had exhibited untiring activity, while they exhausted all their capital without realizing the return of a single dollar. But they derived rich hopes from reading the story of Peter Terreros, and they continued to hope on and hope ever, for a period of twenty-five years longer, when they ceased to exist. The story of this company is summed up in saying that they expended upon this vast enterprise the sum of $20,000,000, and realized from it $16,000,000. They disposed of all their interests here for about what their materials were worth as old iron, and the present proprietors enjoy the fruits of their labors at a cost of less than a million of dollars, with a fair prospect of yet realizing from their speculation as large a treasure as that acquired by Peter Terreros, the first Count of Regla.

Having thus described with some minuteness one of the most extensive silver mines in the world, where an average of 5000 men and unnumbered animals are employed, it will not be necessary to go into details as we notice the many other celebrated mines of Mexico.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

Toluca.--Queretaro, Guanajuato, and Zacatecas.--Fresnillo.--"Romancing."--A lucky Priest.--San Luis Potosi.--The Valenciana at Guanajuato.--Under-mining.--A Name of Blasphemy.--The Los Rayas.--Immense Sums taken from Los Rayas.--Warlike Indians in Zacatecas.

A stage runs daily from the city of Mexico by Tacubaya and the Desierto to the beautiful valley and city of Toluca. This town is greatly indebted for its present celebrity to successful mining adventures. Its Cathedral is a monument of the munificent liberality of the Frenchman Laborde, whose fortune was ever unequal to his generosity. We have spoken already of the almost Oriental magnificence displayed in the famous garden which he built and adorned at Cuarnavaca. After spending the wealth acquired from the _bonanza_ of Tasco, he started off in search of new adventures and a new fortune. Being again successful, he made Toluca the beneficiary of his princely liberality. The celebrated Cathedral of that city, and all its ornaments, are the proofs of his munificence. When his third fortune was exhausted, the fickle G.o.ddess forsook him, and he who had three times been raised from nothing to the condition of a millionaire, came in his old age to the archbishop for relief from his poverty. This relief he obtained by selling the jewels he had once bestowed upon the Church. Such often are the vicissitudes in the life of a successful miner. I can not notice here the many interesting objects gathered as I would wish to do, nor have I s.p.a.ce for a description of the beautiful mountain scenery about Toluca.

MIDDLE STATES OF MEXICO.

The middle states of Mexico, Guanajuata, Zacatecas, Durango, and San Luis, are deserving of a more extended notice than my limited s.p.a.ce will permit. There is little of war or romance to recount in the history of any of them. Their story is made up of notices of silver mines, and times of great _bonanzas_ and cattle-raising. Here the population is mostly white, made up of the hardy peasantry from Biscay.

The Indians on the high table-lands were too hardy to be reduced to slavery: the result is the same here as in Chili. The two races have not extensively intermixed, as the Indians were driven northward, where, for a period of three hundred years, they have, in a measure, maintained their independence, and have so much improved in the art of war that they are able to return again and fight for the homes of their ancestors. The white inhabitants of these states are more cleanly in their habits, and more industrious than the Southern people. The little state of Queretaro has little to boast but its agriculture, but to the north of it is a country of mines and pasturage.

There was formerly great rivalry between the states of Guanajuato and Zacatecas on the ground of their mining successes. Each in turn has had its season of boasting, for it has happened that, in those years when Guanajuato was most prosperous, Zacatecas was not in _bonanza_, and _vice versa_. When I was first in Mexico, San Luz and San Luce, at Guanajuato, were in _bonanza_, with divers others; and out of $300,000 in silver bars brought down to the city of Mexico, nearly ten per cent. of gold was extracted. But now both these _bonanzas_ have given out, and the annual product of silver in the State of Guanajuato has fallen off over $2,000,000, while the mines of Zacatecas are in a most flourishing condition, as is shown by the large sum of $1,200,000 being demanded by government for renewing the lease of the mint at Zacatecas.

Fresnillo is the most flourishing of the mines of Zacatecas. This mine was formerly considered of little value. Among its advantages is an American manager, who for many years has aided in the direction of its affairs. On my return from Mexico, I found the road up the Perote covered with wagons laden with portions of a monster steam-engine, the fifth that was to be employed to pump the water from this mine. It seems incredible that so large a sum as $1,000,000 should be required for the freight alone of this new machinery. But, after I had become familiar with the vast scale on which every thing is conducted at a large silver mine, where millions appear as the small dust of the balance, I can credit what my readers might think improbable.[75]

I have often spoken of the peculiarities of peasant life in the country and of the _peons_ of the cities. But there is another phase of humble life to be considered--the social state of the mine laborer. Like all men whose wages are very irregular, and subject to the fluctuations which follow mining speculations, they themselves become irregular in their lives. They have all heard of the many instances of persons of as humble condition as themselves accidentally falling upon a princely fortune, and they know, too, what a miraculous change such a discovery makes in the social condition of a _peon_, for every miner in Zacatecas knows the homely distich:

"Had the metals not been so rich at San Bernabe, Ibarra would not have wed the daughter of Virey."[76]

In addition to sc.r.a.ps and s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs, the mining laborers have their _romances_, which are as wild as the _yarns_ of the sailor, and have for their almost universal theme the miraculous acquisition and loss of a fortune. The hero possesses princely wealth to-day, though yesterday he was suffering for food, and to-morrow he will be again bereft of all by the fickle turns that Fortune makes in the wheel of destiny. The wildest of our romances never come up to many incidents that have occurred in their own mine; and when they attempt fiction, it is on the pattern of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. I do verily believe that all that cla.s.s of Arabian tales are but the reproduction of the _romances_ from the Oriental gold-washings.