Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/399

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MEXICO IN 1827.
383

facts merely, in order to demonstrate the necessity of subjecting to the test of experience, upon a large scale, those secrets for expediting the process of amalgamation, which have been offered to the Companies as invaluable discoveries, in London, but by which I am not aware that any beneficial effect has yet been produced in New Spain. Where so great a difference exists between the ores of two mines belonging to the same district, and situated sometimes upon the same vein, there is little reason to suppose that any general system can be adopted. At all events it should be tried by the inventor upon the spot; for an experiment made with chymical nicety upon a very small quantity of ore, may not prove successful when applied to the masses, upon which the Amalgamator must act in Mexico, where it is in the abundance, and not in the quality of the ores, that the riches of the mines consist.

Road to Angangeo.

From Temascaltepec I proceeded on the morning of the 26th of August to Ăngăngēŏ, a Mining district in the State of Valladolid, about seven leagues from Tlălpŭjāhuă, and twenty-seven from Tĕmăscāltĕpēc.

The road is excessively varied from the circumstance of its bordering constantly upon Tierra Caliente, into which almost every deep ravine or valley conducts you. In these you find sugar-plantations. Bananas, Chirimoyas, and all the tropical fruits;