aordinary speculation upon
the shares in London are still pointed to as an example of mining
operations as conducted at that period. After spending twenty million
dollars and extracting sixteen millions from its mines, the company was
wound up in 1848. It was succeeded by a Mexican company, which operated
to the present time, when sale has been made to American capitalists.
The turbulent times of Maximilian and the struggles later for the
Presidency of the Republic among its ambitious and unscrupulous
military element in later years told against peaceful industry.
Soldiers and bandits vied with each other in extortions and robberies,
and the fortifications which it was necessary to construct around the
mine buildings attest the state of lawlessness of that period.

Even towards the close of last century life and property were insecure,
and men went armed in daylight in the streets of Pachuca even in 1890.
At Guanajuato the English company which had acquired the great
Valenciana and La Luz mines worked them successfully for years, but
often under difficulties due to the raids of revolutionists--as in
1832. But a disastrous period followed, and during the last decade of
the nineteenth century the end came. The regeneration of these historic
groups of mines which is now taking place is due to American
enterprise--the British _regime_ is over. The Aztec, the Spaniard, the
Mexican, the Briton, and the American--each have had their day in
taking this treasure of the white metal from the mother lodes of
Anahuac. Whatever their operations, good or evil, they have in
succession done service to the world--putting into circulation added
means of currency and commerce.

The extent into which religious matters and emblems entered into mining
in these early days in the New World was remarkable. In many cases the
entrances to the mines were through elaborate stone doorways, with
pillar, capital, and pediment, carved figures of saints, and surmounted
by a cross. Such are often encountered in Mexico and Peru, and they
seem rather the portals to a temple than the entrance to a mine. There
was some virtue in work which lavished its sentiment and artistic skill
upon the surroundings of a purely industrial enterprise. Churches and
chapels, in many instances, surmount the hills whose bowels are pierced
by shaft and gallery, and upon the walls of these hang strange
pictures, depicting, in some places, incidents of mining life and
accidents,