Mexico

01/05/2014 14:11

 

 
In 1855 Robert Wilson wrote: ---
 
"The evidence that I have presented of the inexhaustible supplies of silver in Northern Mexico, near the route of our proposed Pacific Railroad, may be interesting to legislators. These masses of silver lie as undisturbed by their present owners as did the Mexican discoveries of gold in California before the American conquest, from the inertness of the local population, and the want of facilities of communication with the city of Mexico "
 
The inertness of the local population became somewhat awakened in subsequent years, yet the obsrvation of 'masses of undisturbed silver' is interesting, viewed in context off the years of plundering of this natural resource since the  first Spanish arrivals of 1518. Annual average exports from the port of Vera Cruz to Spain were in the region of US$18,000,000 and rising to US$22 million in the final fifty years of Spanish dominion. The bulk of this revenue derived from silver exports, whereby 75% of the silver shipped to Europe in 300 years from the Americas was shipped through Vera Cruz. (the City of the True Cross).

In the reign of Don Carlos, (1759-1788) The College of Mines had been established as the finest building in the city,  another exhibition of the liberal spirit which governed. A new code of mining laws had been digested, strikingly resembling the then  (1855)  miner's rules in California. Their immediate effect had been to almost  double the production of silver, whilst at the same time supporting a school to impart scientific knowledge in relation to mining, and a bank to advance money to develop new mineral enterprises. 

In Wilson's time, the mines of  the village of Pachuca, the oldest productive mines in Mexico, lay some 60 miles from the city and it was here that the English mining company Real del Monte struck it rich in the Rosario shaft of the Hakal mine, this however was after 25 years of  comparatively little reward. The adjacent San Nicholas shaft had yielded immense amounts of silver over the years.

Much more can be written about the southern Mexican mines, however it is the northern state of Sonora, the second largest state in Mexico which has probably yielded the most riches. These riches include --"Gold, silver, mercury, copper, and iron, in a pure state, in grains, in masses, or in dust, as well as mixed with other metals, superficially or in veins,  lead, or combinations of lead, for aiding in extracting metals by fire, and for the construction of  war munitions, amianthus or incombustible crystal, ores of copper, exquisite marble, alabaster, and jasper of various colours, as well as quarries of stone of chrispa and magnetic stones, muriate and carbonate of soda, saltpetre or nitrate of potassium are found in abundance.

In the old mining records of the Arazuma mine is evidence of the masses of silver extracted from there,  Don Domingo Asmendi paid duties on a piece of virgin silver which weighed 275 lbs. The king's attorney (fiscal) brought suit for the duties on several other pieces, which together weighed 4033 lbs. Also for the recovery, as a curiosity, and therefore the property of the king, of a certain piece of silver of the weight of 2700 lbs. This is probably the largest piece of pure silver ever found in the world, and yet it was discovered only a few miles distant from the  track of  the Pacific Railroad. 

 
 
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