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MEXICO IN 1827.
work, has given to its present proprietor, the Licenciado Gordoa, the estate of Mal Passo, near Zacatecas, (for which he paid 700,000 dollars,) and a million of dollars Capital: the best ores, during this time, have sold, according to the Registers of the mine, at 340 and 380 dollars per carga, (of 300 lbs.)
The ores of a particular level of the mine of La Purisima, which belongs to the family of the Obregons, (el ojo del cielo) sold for 600, 400, and 380 dollars per carga; at which price they were bought as late as 1817.[1]
With such attractions as these, natural difficulties are easily overcome; and I have little doubt that,
- ↑ The necessity of a class of middlemen, or Rescatadores, so often mentioned in this Book, was nowhere more strongly exemplified than at Catorce; where almost all the first discoverers were mere adventurers, and consequently unable to establish the necessary works for reducing the ores of their mines. This was done by small capitalists, most of whose establishments are still kept up by the descendants of the families, although the speculation is not now by any means what it was. Hence, the only standard of the value of the ores at Catorce, is the price which they fetch at the weekly sales, which take place at the mouth of the mine. A similar system is pursued occasionally at Guanajuato, where, from the immense mass of ores raised, it was difficult for any individual to raise works sufficiently extensive to reduce them all. The Foreign Companies wish to adopt a different system, and to unite the profits of the Amalgamater with those of the Miner; but in some mines and districts, sales are still resorted to, from the difficulty of abolishing so old a custom.
