towards the central provinces. In the vicinity of the capital, all the materials for building abound; lime and stone may he procured at a very little distance from the gates; the flint used in the glass manufactory is found at the foot of the Cerro del Mercado; and the best lead from Cuēncămē and Măpĭmī only costs four dollars the quintal. Copper for alloy is brought from Chĭhūāhuă, and sells for twenty-four dollars the hundred weight; and the iron of the Cerro del Mercado, when worked up, as it has frequently been, upon a small scale, into mining tools, is said to be so hard as not to require the usual process of tipping it with steel.
These advantages will be duly appreciated when Durango becomes, as it will do in a few years, the scene of operations for some great foreign or native association of capitalists, by whose labours the resources of the country will first be fully developed.
The State is rich in mineral deposits, none of which, excepting Gūārĭsămĕy, and Săn Dīmăs, have been at all extensively worked. There is hardly a single mine exceeding 100 varas in depth; for, in general, the use of even the simplest machinery was unknown in the North; and a malacate, primitive as the invention is, would have excited almost as much astonishment as a steam-engine itself The mines were worked as long as the water could be raised without inconvenience by two or three "Tenateros," (carriers,) with leathern buckets; and abandoned when the discharge of this duty became too labo-
