second in rank as a bullion producer. From 1548 to 1832 it yielded $2,120,000 a year, and in the next 35 years an average of $4,000,000 a year. Its wealthiest district bears the same name, whose great mines are the Veta Grande, Quebradilla, and San Bernabé. Its ores have been classified as follows: stephanite or prismatic black silver, argentite, native silver, black silver, dark ruby, chloride of silver, embolite, horn silver, carbonates, argentiferous galena, and tescatete. There is no gold except to the west of Zacatecas. The district of Fresnillo in the Cerro de Proaño produced in 1841 $1,025,113. With the coming of the railway its further success is assured. The district of Sombrerete has a large number of mines, the average yield of whose ore is $300 per ton. The past production of this group is veiled in doubt; but one half of the amount officially stated would be one hundred and fifty million dollars, which is probably correct. An American company is now operating in those mines. The district of Mazapil, it is said, yielded $50,000,000, which is probably true, for the workings and slag-piles even now give $50 per ton. It has been often raided by the Apaches, causing its abandonment for some time. Later it was worked by the New York Company, which sent there a 40-ton water-jacket furnace to reduce the ores. The state of San Luis Potosí was in former times the third bullion producer. Its greatest district was Catorce, yielding from $600,000 to $662,000 a year. In its best years it gave $2,804,000; in 1804, three and a half millions. The Purísima Concepcion, Padre Flores, or Zavala mines, and the Vicentin, have also been rich.[1]
The state of Sonora is a vast mineral region, and its numerous mining districts are productive. In that of Babicanora, the Cármen mine is said to have produced $25,000,000 from 1820 to 1830, and the Babi-
- ↑ In the Mineral de Guadalcázar, ruined by the events of 1810 to 1821, about 103 claims were filed to 1878, most of them with the main view of holding the lands freely. The Concepcion was destroyed by a heavy rain.
