Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/370

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354
MEXICO IN 1827

brought over for the purpose, who constructed a high-pressure engine planned by Don Andres del Rio. In order to obtain a sufficient command of water, a Presa, or dam, was built, at a great expence, upon the summit of a neighbouring mountain; but the plan failed, because the force of the water having been calculated during the rainy season, it was found insufficient, during the dry, to keep the engine at work for more than six hours out of the twenty-four.

Moran may be regarded as one of the most interesting points at Real del Monte. The old Adit, from which the wealth of the first Conde de Regla was derived, commences within one hundred yards of the shaft. The new Adit, the level for which is taken at the Hacienda of Sanchez, (about eight hundred yards distance,) is to be driven exactly in the same direction, and the new road to Regla passes close to the mouth of the mine.

This road is one of the enterprizes for which the Company has been blamed, and yet, without it, not a single steam-engine could have reached Real del Monte. In the time of the old Count Regla, when six hundred mules were employed daily in conveying ore from the mines to the Hacienda of Regla, which is nearly six leagues from the Real, there was no other mode of communication than a very dangerous path across the mountains. This has now been transformed into a road for wheel-carriages, which is beautifully laid down, and upon