remains almost unexplored. That it will long continue so, I do not believe, for public attention has already been turned in this direction, and should the first adventurers succeed, an extraordinary change may be expected to take place in the Mining interests of New Spain in the course of the next twenty years.
That the great mineral treasures of Mexico commence exactly at the point where Humboldt rightly states the labours of the Spaniards to have terminated, (about Latitude 24°,) is a fact now universally admitted by the native miners, although, hitherto, but little known in Europe.
In order the better to illustrate it, I shall beg to subjoin some details, which I was enabled to collect during my journey into the Interior, premising, that I have the evidence of Registers of produce, and official documents, for every fact that I submit to my readers, (some of the least voluminous of which I subjoin,) and that I have adopted nothing upon mere verbal report.
The States of Durango, Sonora, Chihuahua, and Sinaloa, contain an infinity of mines hitherto but little known, but holding out, wherever they have been tried, a promise of riches superior to any thing that Mexico has yet produced.
The Districts, a list, or sketch of the principal of which will be found in Table IV., are distinguished, not less by the superior quality of their ores, than by the circumstance of their beginning to be
