t
present, was Zacatecas, and its name alone conveys the idea of silver
and gold. In 1546 it was, that a lieutenant of Cortes, traversing the
country, arrived there, observed its promise of mineral wealth, and
formed a settlement. So rapidly did the place become renowned that,
forty years afterwards, a Royal Charter was given to the city, and a
coat of arms, with the title, "Noble and Loyal." The curious archives
of the Alvarado Mines--they were worked by Fernando Cortes--which were
kept, and which show the care in these matters exercised by the
Spaniards, still exist; as is the case, indeed, with the records of
many of the great mining centres of Mexico and Peru. Here it is shown
that an enormous output of silver was made, the total from 1548 to 1867
amounting to nearly eight hundred million dollars.

The great lodes of the famous mining centre of Pachuca, which at the
present day are the most productive, were discovered by the companions
of Cortes soon after the Conquest. But knowledge of the great wealth in
silver there was held by the Aztecs, who, in fact, showed the main
veins to the Spaniards. It was here that Bartolome de Medina discovered
the famous method of treating silver ores by amalgamation with
quicksilver, known as the _patio_ process, in 1557. An improvement on
his invention came from Peru, in 1783, which was the use of mules
instead of men in treading out the crushed ore. From far-away Peru
other matters had come, as the quicksilver from the great Huancavelica
mines, the mercury necessary for the process. And the beautiful
Peruvian pepper trees, which were brought to ornament the _plaza_ of
Pachuca by one of the last of the Viceroys from Lima, form another
reminiscence of the sister land of the Incas, in Mexico. There is at
Pachuca a link with the world of Anglo-Saxon mining--the cemetery where
to-day lie the bones of clever Cornish miners, who, in the time of the
British revival of Mexican mining, taught the native their more useful
methods. There lie these hardy sons of Cornwall, "each in his narrow
cell," within the foreign soil whereon he had laboured.

What is the earliest time at which man began to dig for minerals in
Mexico? It is not possible to determine this, as it is involved in the
obscure history of the races of prehispanic days. But it has been
affirmed that the method of recovering gold by amalgamation with
quicksilver must have been known to the Maya civilisation which
preceded the Azt