were employed, almost exclusively, upon the poorer ores of the South. A similar effect was produced by the restrictions upon the sale of Quicksilver, the monopoly of which belonged to the Crown; for although, by a series of judicious reductions, the price of this essential article was so much lowered, as to place it within the reach of every class of Miners, still, the distribution of it, (which depended upon the Viceroy,) was by no means impartially regulated, the poorer Miners being generally sacrificed to the influence of the richer; while the necessity of concentrating the supply in one great Depôt, (the Capital) and of effecting the importation through one solitary port, (Veracruz,) rendered the possibility of obtaining a sufficiency for the regular reduction of ores, in the North, extremely uncertain, although the want of it entailed upon the Mining proprietor inevitable ruin.
Such were the principal characteristics of the Mining System of New Spain before 1810, at which time the country was supposed to contain 500 Reales, or Realitos, (spots in which mines were worked,) with from Three to Five thousand mines, (large and small,) included in the thirty-seven Mining Districts, or Deputations, into which the Viceroyalty was divided.
The names of these Districts, with those of the principal mines in each, may be found in Humboldt, (Book IV. Chapter II.) as given by a manuscript, drawn up by Don Fausto Ellhuyar, (first Director
