red the
formation of numerous caravans with the character of companies, and
with the object of collecting precious metals, which they encountered
in the placers of Arizuma and of Papagueria, but until now they have
not been able to hold with effect undertakings so laudable.

Various are the causes on account of which the riches which lie buried
through all parts of the immense territory of the State of Sonora have
not been explored. Some of these reasons have already been referred to,
but, for greater clearness, we take this opportunity to recapitulate
them all. The first, which are much noted, are the following:

1st. The absolute want of personal security.

2d. The scarcity of population, and of the means of subsistence for the
few hands that they were able to have devoted to working mines in the
immediate vicinity of hostile Indians.

3d. The irregularity and the want of experience and capital in those
who have undertaken the exploration and the extraction of metals, which
has occasioned the abandonment of this class of speculations whenever
they presented any difficulties, or commenced to be more costly by
failing to produce metals upon the surface of the earth. Some certain
speculations which have been directed with regard to the rules which
regulate mineral industry, and have been prosecuted with capital, have
well compensated the labors and efforts of the proprietors.

Gold and silver, as above said, are not the only mineral productions of
Sonora. In the part of Muchachos, situated in the Sierra Madre, between
Tueson and Tubac, and in Mogollon, a place situated in the mountains of
Apuchuria, in those of Papagueria, and near the Colorado, are found
great masses of virgin iron, and abundant veins of the same metal.
Cinnabar was discovered in 1802 in the hill of Santa Teresa, situated
in the _mineral_ of Rio Chico; and in the hills which are at the north
of the Colorado, it has been found in the past age. Copper is also
found in Antunes, Tonuco, Bacauchi, Pozo de Crisante, Sierra de
Guadalupe, Sierra de la Papagueria, and particularly in the Couanea,
from whence have been extracted great quantities of this metal, with a
great ley of gold. Metals of lead (_metales plomosos_) abound in Agua
Caliente, Alamo-Muerto, La Papagueria, Arispe, and La Cieneguilla. From
these two last points have been taken considerable quantities of them,
for supplying all other mines of the state [to aid in fusion], and for
munitions of