A hundred years have pa.s.sed since the once formidable Apaches swept over northern Sonora like a deluge, blotting out forever the hopes which the Spanish court had conceived of retrieving the fallen finances of their empire from this _El Dorado_. But Providence had ordered it otherwise. The Spaniards had done enough to demonstrate its inexhaustible wealth, and then they were driven away from this "creation of silver,"[83] and the whole deposit held for a hundred years in reserve for the uses of another race, who were destined to overrun the continent.

I should have but half performed my task should I omit to speak of the excellent bay and harbor of Guaymas, in the southern part of Sonora.

After San Francisco, it is the finest harbor on the Pacific, and is the natural route through which our commerce with the East Indies should be directed. The long experience of Spain taught her that a western route to the East Indies was so much superior to the one by the Cape of Good Hope as to compensate for a transhipment of all of her East India merchandise upon mules' backs from Acapulco to Vera Cruz. Much more advantageous must it be to us, when a railroad from El Paso, pa.s.sing through the midst of the silver district I have described, shall transfer our commerce with j.a.pan and China to the Pacific side of our continent. Here the very silver necessary for the purchase of tea is nearly as abundant as tin in some of the European mines, and, as in California, the prospects held out to the farmer are equal to mineral attractions.

It would be folly for our government to acquire Sonora without first providing for connecting it with our country by railroad, and equally foolish to acquire it without making provision, in the treaty of acquisition, for reducing all land-t.i.tles to the size of a single township, in consideration for the superior value given to the property by the annexation, and for annulling all land-t.i.tles under which there is not an actual occupancy. The Spanish courts concede to government this power over private rights, and for this reason a treaty of acquisition from Mexico would prevent the confusion that now exists in California, and enable American settlers to locate understandingly at once. All t.i.tles should continue to be subject, as they now are, to the right of the miner to enter in search of precious metals, thus no conflicts in relation to the rights of land-owners and miners could arise. The principle on which the Mexican mining laws and the California mining customs are established should be recognized by the United States. But that right of entry would not arise until the construction of a railroad should afford the means of actually reducing the country to possession, which Spain never has accomplished, and Mexico never can accomplish.

[79] When I was first at the city of Mexico, Governor Letcher introduced to me a son of the late emperor, who had a claim for land in California which he had not located before the annexation. I advised him, without a fee, that our courts did not recognize foreign "floats," and that, by his own _laches_, he had lost his claim, which he now spread along the Sacramento River for 400 miles. Finding out, after an expenditure of several thousand dollars, the defect, he got a new claim from the late President Lombardini of thirty miles square, which he will probably now pin tight in Sonora. The defect of our two last treaties with Mexico was in not having a clause inserted reducing all t.i.tles to land to six miles square, as a consideration for the enhanced value by the annexation.

[80] I would not like to make such extravagant statements on my own authority, however satisfactory the testimony might be to myself, for the abundance of silver in Sonora is beyond the belief of most men. But, fortunately, I have, in Ward's "Mexico,"

an authority that can not be disputed. The work is accessible to all my readers. The author was charged by the British government with an examination of the mines of Mexico.

[81] Ward, vol. ii. p. 578.

[82] Ibid.

[83] I do not know exactly how to translate the Spanish idea attached to the words _creador de plata_ unless by saying that it is a spot where baser substances are supposed to be converted into silver by some unknown process of nature.

APPENDIX.

A.

MINERIA REPORT ON THE MINERAL RICHES OF SONORA.

Among the five-and-twenty states and territories that compose the Mexican confederation, there is no other which contains in its respective territory the like wonderful mineral riches which abound in the state of which we treat. This would appear almost fabulous; but there is proof enough from the testimony of many residents of that state, and from the a.s.sertion of travelers, from the evidences which the archives of the various missions exhibit, and from the royal registry of mines (_reales de minas_), and, lastly, from the indubitable fact of the production of great quant.i.ties of gold and silver from the mines and _placers_ of this state, considering the small amount of forces, and its isolation from all the princ.i.p.al settlements of the republic by reason of the distance which separates it from them.

In fact, many metals of universal estimation, such as gold, silver, mercury, copper, and iron, in a pure state, in grains, in ma.s.ses, or in dust, as well as mixed with other metals, superficially or in veins, are found in the extensive territory of Sonora; lead, or combinations of lead, for aiding in extracting metals by fire, and for the construction of munitions of war, amianthus or incombustible crystal, divers ores of copperas, exquisite marble, alabaster, and jasper of various colors, as well as quarries of stone of _chrispa_ and magnetic stones, muriate and carbonate of soda, saltpetre or nitrate of pota.s.sa, are, in enumeration, the mineral productions which are found in abundance in the territory of the state of Sonora, which comprehends the region from the river of Fort _Monte Clarasal_ at the south to the Gila at the north, and from the Sierra Madre at the east to the Colorado at the northwest.

To the disgrace of the nation, these authentic and exact notices of the marvelous riches of this remote state have availed nothing in determining speculators (_empresarios_) to resort to those places in pursuit of a fortune so certain, or at least to have avoided, by the means of colonization, the loss which is _feared_ of this inestimable jewel.

The territory of the state of Sonora lacks nothing but security [from incursions of Indians] in order that the hand of man may be profusely recompensed for his labor. Virgin soils, where the agricultural fruits of all climates not only flourish, but many of these improve in quality; navigable rivers, which contribute in part to the easy transportation of the products to the ports of the Pacific for exportation and consumption; mines and _placers_ of precious metals, in many of which there is no necessity of capital to explore and collect them--are not these stimulants enough to attract there a population thrifty and civilized? In order to ascertain the mineral riches which the nation may lose in a short time, we call attention to the mineral statistics which follow, although they are imperfect and diminutive.

As already we have said, the whole of Sonora is mineral; but as among us we only give this name to those places in which there have been discovered and worked a conjunction of veins, it results that the places in this state to which for this cause has been given the name of mineral are thirty-four. Some of the mines are _amparadas_ [viz., worked sufficient to confer a legal t.i.tle to the occupant], and are imperfectly in a state of operation. The names of all of these two cla.s.ses, which are sixteen in all, are Hermosillo, San Javier, Subiate, Vayoreca, Alamas, Babicanara, Batuco, La Alameda, Rio Chico, El Aguaja, Aigame, El Luaque, Saguaripa, La Trinidad, San Antonio, and El Zoni.

The remaining eighteen are found abandoned, some for the want of water, and others for the want of laborers or capital, and by the fear which the barbarous Indians inspire. The names of these last minerals are San Juan de Sonora, that of the Sierra at the northwest of Guaymas, Arizuma, Bacauchi, Antunes, San Jose de Gracia, El Gavilau, San Ildefonso de la Cienequilla, San Francisco el Calou, Santa Rosa, San Antonio de la Huenta, Vadoseco Sobia, Mulatos, Basura, Alamo-Muerto, and San Perfecto.

In the same state have been discovered twenty-one _placers_; of these, one is of virgin silver, in grains and plates (_planchas_), and twenty of pure gold, in grains and dust; but as nearly all these are situated in the mineral districts (_minerales_) already mentioned, the names of those which are not given are the following: Agua Caliente, Quitovac, Las Palomas, La Canaca, and Totahiqui. With the exception of three, to which gold-hunters from time to time resort to relieve their necessities, all the others remain abandoned.

There was only one mineral district actually in work at the close of the last century and the beginning of the present; those now actually in process of being worked are fourteen, and their names are La Grande, La Quintera, El Subiate, Bulbaucda Europita, Vayoreca, La Cotera, Santo Domingo, Noercheran, La Sibertao, Minas-Nuevas, El Tajo, Minas Prietas, and another near La Grande.

From the mineral districts (_minerales_) abandoned there ought to be inferred an increased number of mines, which are in the same condition, but we do not know their names, and we have only notices of the twenty following: Pimas, La Tarasca, Ubalama, Ojito de San Roman, Yaquis, La Guerita, Noaguila, Las Animas, Afuerenos, Piedras-verdes Navares, La Calera, Caugrejos, Guillarmena, San Atilano, San Teodoro, and El Gavilau. In those in Pinas, and in one of those of the _mineral_ of San Jose de Gracia, have been found considerable amounts of pure silver deposited in their veins, and mineral taken from San Teodoro has produced one half silver. In extracting the silver from the ore in this place, we ought to mention that the greater part of these mines are susceptible of great _bonanzas_, from not having been worked extensively, as their proprietors abandoned them when the metals failed to appear upon the surface, and when the exploration was a little more costly.

There are eleven haciendas in the State of Sonora for purifying the metals which the mines and _placers_ produce, without taking into the account many little establishments, with from two to five horse-mills, with one bad furnace for the fusion of metals. Three of these are situated in Alamas, five in Aduana, one in Promontorio, another in Tatagiosa, and the last in Minas Nuevas (New Mines). There are many abandoned mines, as the rubbish and ruins indicate, which we have noticed, in all the abandoned mineral districts.

The methods which they have observed in extracting the metals from the ore are the _patio_ [by application of quicksilver in an open yard], and that of fusion, with the aid of some metals that a.s.sist the fusion; but from the fact that the quicksilver augments considerably the price, the few that there carry on the business have preferred the process of fusion to that of the _patio_, from being less costly, and because the docility of the metals afford facilities to this process.

No machines of new invention have been introduced into that state, either for the drainage of the mines or for facilitating the extracting of the metals. This ought not to surprise us, in places so desert and distant from the metropolis, unaccustomed to the vivifying movements of commerce, and to the necessities which civilization has engendered in the more important populations in the central parts of the republic.

That which is rare, and ought to call attention, is the exception of some mines, where _malacatos_ [water-sacks of bull-hides, drawn up by a windla.s.s] are used for discharging water. In almost all those which have thus been worked, they have not had an opportunity to exhibit their riches, as the abundance of water in many of them was the princ.i.p.al cause of their abandonment.

The greatest difficulty in the way of giving an exact idea of the products of the mines and placers of Sonora is the scandalous contraband exportations of gold and silver which are made from the ports of the Sea of Cortez [Gulf of California] on the one hand, and, on the other, the difficulties that have presented themselves to his Excellency, the Governor of that state, for giving the statistical notices which have been sought on repeated occasions by the Junta of the Mineria, both of which causes have made difficult the account which we furnish; but by those which they themselves furnished of the production of those minerals before and since the independence of the nation, and by the exhibits of various witnesses presented in the remission of bars which from thence they made to the capital of the republic, when the ports of the Pacific were sealed to foreign commerce, the production of precious metals having yielded in divers epochs not far from 4500 pounds of silver, without considering the gold (abundant enough in _placers_ and in rivers), and from what is known, the quant.i.ties of this metal extracted have been considerable, and in more abundance than in the mineral districts of the other states of the republic.

Attention having been much called to the ley and weight of the grains of pure gold found on the surface in Quitovac, Cienequilla, and San Francisco, as well as those ma.s.ses of virgin silver found in Arizuma, which wonderful riches stimulated the colonial government to despoil the proprietors of it, and afterward the King of Spain, in declaring that it pertained to his royal patrimony.

All those places in Sonora which are actually abandoned, as well as all the lands of that state, are susceptible of producing great riches. The reasons on which these a.s.sertions are founded are those which M. Saint Clair Duport mentions in speaking of the probable variation there will be in value of gold and silver in time, by reason of the great extractions hereafter of these metals, particularly in California [this was before the annexation of California] and Sonora, where, as in the Ural Mountains, and the Altai Mountains of Central Asia, gold is extremely abundant, and because in the _placers_ mentioned explorers have recognized gold in dust, which they have not washed for want of water in some, and from the difficulty that exists in others in order to work them, such as those of Arizuma and La Papagueria.

Nothing could be said in relation to the number of operatives who are employed in working the mines of this state, nor the day-laborers; nor in respect to articles consumed there, as well in the digging of the metals as in extracting them from the ores, because, as has already been said, his Excellency the Governor has not been able to give the notices which have been sought, and there are no other better authorities through whom information can be procured. For in this state there are no mining courts,[84] but the ordinary judges of first instance are the authorities which take cognizance of matters which occur in the department of the Mineria.

[84] The t.i.tle to all mines in Mexico rests solely upon discovery and improvement, without any regard to the proprietorship to the land on which the mines are located; but the proof of discovery and improvement must be made and recorded in the mineral courts, except in Sonora, where the ordinary courts have jurisdiction.

There are no companies for the exploration of the mines in that remote state. Some inhabitants, in distant periods, have procured the formation of numerous caravans with the character of companies, and with the object of collecting precious metals, which they encountered in the placers of Arizuma and of Papagueria, but until now they have not been able to hold with effect undertakings so laudable.

Various are the causes on account of which the riches which lie buried through all parts of the immense territory of the State of Sonora have not been explored. Some of these reasons have already been referred to, but, for greater clearness, we take this opportunity to recapitulate them all. The first, which are much noted, are the following:

1st. The absolute want of personal security.

2d. The scarcity of population, and of the means of subsistence for the few hands that they were able to have devoted to working mines in the immediate vicinity of hostile Indians.

3d. The irregularity and the want of experience and capital in those who have undertaken the exploration and the extraction of metals, which has occasioned the abandonment of this cla.s.s of speculations whenever they presented any difficulties, or commenced to be more costly by failing to produce metals upon the surface of the earth. Some certain speculations which have been directed with regard to the rules which regulate mineral industry, and have been prosecuted with capital, have well compensated the labors and efforts of the proprietors.

Gold and silver, as above said, are not the only mineral productions of Sonora. In the part of Muchachos, situated in the Sierra Madre, between Tueson and Tubac, and in Mogollon, a place situated in the mountains of Apuchuria, in those of Papagueria, and near the Colorado, are found great ma.s.ses of virgin iron, and abundant veins of the same metal.

Cinnabar was discovered in 1802 in the hill of Santa Teresa, situated in the _mineral_ of Rio Chico; and in the hills which are at the north of the Colorado, it has been found in the past age. Copper is also found in Antunes, Tonuco, Bacauchi, Pozo de Crisante, Sierra de Guadalupe, Sierra de la Papagueria, and particularly in the Couanea, from whence have been extracted great quant.i.ties of this metal, with a great ley of gold. Metals of lead (_metales plomosos_) abound in Agua Caliente, Alamo-Muerto, La Papagueria, Arispe, and La Cieneguilla. From these two last points have been taken considerable quant.i.ties of them, for supplying all other mines of the state [to aid in fusion], and for munitions of war. Copperas, or sulphate of iron, is abundant in San Javier, San Antonio de la Huerta, and Agua Caliente. In the first of these placers a vein runs from south to north, from pieces of which, dissolved in water, there results a tint which, by evaporation, forms into grains, and produces the same effect as the tint of China. In Cucurpe is _amianto_, or incombustible crystal, which the ancients so much valued. Marbles of various cla.s.ses and colors, as well as alabasters and jaspers, are found in Opasura, Hermosillo, Uores, La Campana, and other points; but we do not know as yet the place from which the Aztecs obtained the beautiful reddish marble which they used in the construction of their divinity of Chapultepec, which is preserved in the National Museum, and which, according to all conjectures and probabilities, proceeded from the quarries of marble of that state. There are quarries of the stone of chrispa, and even the magnet in Alamas, Hermosillo, in Sierras of the frontier, and in the causada of Barbitas, ten leagues distant from Hermosillo, near the route of La Cieneguilla. Muriate and carbonate of soda, saltpetre, or nitrate of pota.s.sa, are found in the margin of the rivers which empty into the Gulf of Cortez [of California], and particularly in the mouths of the Colorado.

B.

REPORT ON THE MINERAL RICHES OF CHIHUAHUA.

The statistical notices which have until to-day been received, embrace five cantons or departments of that state, which show that there exist in it sixteen _minerals_ [districts containing mines], of which twelve are in working, and four abandoned in consequence of the incessant incursions of barbarous Indians. Their names are Hidalgo del Parral, Minas Nuevas, San Francisco del Oro, Santa Barbara, Zopago, Chinipas, Guazapores, Batozegache, Guadalupe y Calvo, Cuacogornichie, Galeana, Cosihuiriachic, Santa Eulalia, Barranco, and two more, without names, in the canton Caleana.

Twenty-one mines are found in operation in the twelve _minerals_ in action. The number of those abandoned is increasing, and is not permanent; and the only cause referred to is that many of them are abandoned for want of capital, and others from the hostility of the barbarians. The products of those that were worked in the year 1849 amount to 146,818 marks of silver, of a ley of eleven _dineros_, and 7 marks, 7 oz., and 4 eighths of gold to the twenty-two quintals. The number of haciendas and furnaces for extracting the metal from the ore was twenty, and the processes which they use in that state are the _patio_ and the furnace; the last is the most general. Finally, there has been put in practice a third system, by the house of Manning and M'Intosh, for the purpose of separating the silver by means of the precipitate of copper. The consumptions of the last year, 1849, amount to $544,194, notwithstanding which the notices omit the returns of various mines, haciendas, furnaces, and water-mills. The items are quicksilver at $140 a hundred, gunpowder, lime, wood, sulphate of copper, salt, iron, steel, metals of aid [metals thrown into the compound to aid the process of extracting], tallow, grease, hides, leather, corn, straw, grain, flesh, beans, and bars of iron. The number of operatives is not known with exactness, because the reports only refer to certain mines and haciendas, but in these they amount to 1833, besides day-laborers at five _reals_ (5/8ths of a dollar) a day for half the time. The most important improvements that have been introduced into some of these mines consist in the establishment of pumps for facilitating draining, and in the introduction of German ovens for fusing a greater quant.i.ty of mineral at a less cost and with greater perfection, being so much the more interesting as the condition of the metals presents itself more easily to this kind of benefiting.

Four companies have been established for prosecuting the labor of the mines, Presena, Rosario, Tajo, and Prieta. The first takes its name from Senor Delille, the second is composed of Mexicans, and the last two are composed of Mexicans, English, and naturalized Spaniards.

Nothing is known in relation to their capitals. Besides the precious metals, we find lead in Naica and Babisas, of the canton of Matamoros; copper, from which only _magistral_ is taken, is found in the canton of Mina, and sulphur and saltpetre in the canton of Iturbide. The reports mention nothing in respect to the authorities that take cognizance of the affairs of the Mineria; but it is presumed that, as in the rest of the nation, the judges of first instance take knowledge of controversies, and the courts of mines, if by chance they are established, take cognizance of the economy and government of the mines.

The mint of Guadalupe and Calvo coined in 1848, $720,765, and in 1849, $665,225, of which two sums $1,027,130 were of silver, and $355,859 in gold, the whole being the proceeds of 116,015 marks, 1 oz., and 4 eighths of silver, of the ley of eleven _dineros_, and of 2351 marks, 5 oz., 2 eighths of gold, with ley of twenty-two carats. This appears from the reports of the mint of the capital of that state.

C.

REPORT ON THE MINERAL RICHES OF COAHUILA.

This state, one of the least populous, and exposed, like all the frontier states of the north, to the incessant incursions of the barbarous tribes, offers at present very little interest to those speculations which engender the exercise of mineral industry--that which, besides experience and capital, requires for its development an abundance of hands and entire security. While the publication of the mineral statistics of the nation not only brings the idea of manifesting the present condition of this branch of industry among us, but also that of propagating its exercise as one of the princ.i.p.al elements of riches among the Mexicans, it is necessary to speak of the state in which the Mineria is in Coahuila, and of hopes which it makes to spring up for the future. There are twelve mines actually _amparadas_, or in labor, in the four _minerals_ already mentioned: their names are unknown to us, and it is only known that their monthly products amount to 200 marks [of 8 ounces] of silver and 150 loads of _greta_ [litharge]. The number of operatives employed in all these amount to 193, and the day laborers receive four _reals_ [half a dollar] a day.

There is no exact notice of the number of mineral districts and single mines abandoned in the State of Coahuila; but the number is considerable, according to the information furnished from 1843 by the deputation of Santa Rosa. Among those deserving a particular mention is that of the Sierra de Timulco and that of Potrerillos, by the good ley of the metals of the mines of the first, and by the uniformity of the veins and not unappreciable richness of the second. These veins run generally from northwest to southeast, and in the course they encounter, scattered about, silver-bearing galena [sulphuret of lead], lead, copper, with sulphuret of zinc. The amount of the consumptions of the mines that are worked is also unknown; but it is known that the gunpowder costs the operators $9 an aroba [of 25 pounds], of lead, $12 a carga of 300 pounds; that of _greta_, $6; copper, of superior quality, $16 the hundred weight; the carga of coal, six _reals_ [three fourths of a dollar], and wood, one _real_ a mule-load. The ruins and the heaps of rubbish manifest that in other times there was much activity in the labor of the mines and haciendas for separating the metals; but to-day there are only in existence some furnaces, which are the least costly, which the miners of Coahuila can use for their metals. This they effect generally in ovens, and in _galemes_ in the open plain. But this method of separating the metals, which Coahuilans have been necessitated to adopt as the least expensive, until quicksilver has notably fallen in price, has not remained stationary, as in other parts of the republic. These simple inhabitants have succeeded, by the force of experiments, in obtaining as a result the power of fusing 25 cargas [of 300 pounds] of metal, with the aggregation of 18 cargas of _greta_, in only one furnace and in the s.p.a.ce of twenty-four hours, by consuming only 45 pounds of coal for each carga of metal.

There are three companies in that state for working the mines in the mineral district of Ramirez, and another in that of Trinudco. There is no notice of the amount of funds employed, but it is presumed that they are not considerable, by considering the smallness of the fortunes of the inhabitants of the frontier.