to be discovered, and even at this early period, during his viceroyalty, the average annual yield was over $11,000,000. During his term of office, nine years, there was coined, in the national mint, silver to the amount of over one hundred and fourteen millions of dollars. The city of Mexico was now very populous and the people wealthy, though the taxes were excessive and fell heavily upon the Indians and laboring classes.
[A. D. 1750.] In 1749 the crops were blighted by frosts, and a partial famine ensued the following year, corn becoming so scarce in the provinces of Zacatecas and Guanajuato that it sold at sixty dollars per hundred pounds.
Between 1750 and 1760 great veins of silver were discovered and vast quantities of the precious ore extracted from the bowels of the earth.
The year 1759 was perhaps the most notable of this epoch, as that in which occurred a terrestrial convulsion without a parallel in history. In the state of Michoacan, once the ancient kingdom of the Tarascos, an immense volcano burst forth in a single night, on the 29th of September. The plain of Malpais was once covered with fertile sugar-cane and indigo plantations, but in June, 1759, hollow rumblings began to be heard, followed by flames and earthquakes. In September came the terrible eruptions, when six great volcanic cones were thrown up, the smallest of which was 300 feet and the largest 1,500! In this manner and at this time was formed the active volcano of Jorullo, which exists to-day, and covers the site of those fertile plains where agriculture once flourished.
[A. D. 1761.] The capture of Havana by the English threw New Spain into consternation, although the expected attack upon Vera Cruz was not made. Soldiers, gathered for the defence of the coast, fell victims to fever;
