process of amalgamation was carried on. The whole is in a tolerable state of repair, with the exception of the stampers, for braying the ore, which are now in ruins. These are to be replaced by a large water-wheel now constructing by the Company, which is thirty-six feet in diameter, and is to put in motion forty-eight stamps.
The whole Hacienda is supposed to have cost nearly a million of dollars, and this I am not inclined to regard as an exaggerated estimate. In 1795 five thousand cargas of ore were received there weekly. Yet even this enormous establishment was thought insufficient for the mines, and another Hacienda, called San Antonio, was constructed at a little distance from Regla, which is likewise a splendid mass of buildings, although not comparable to Regla in size or importance. San Antonio will be entirely given up by the Company, as, even if the Mines were to produce again what they did in 1764, a more methodical system of working them would render it impossible for them to make use of it, and Regla, together. Instead of transporting the ores, as was formerly the case, en masse, from the Mine to the Hacienda, they will now undergo a previous preparation at Real del Monte, for which purpose a large stamping establishment is erecting there, in a central position, between the Santa Brigida and Biscaina veins.
By the use of the concentrating machine, the poorer ores, when dressed, will be worked up from
