y require recognizances,
as well as capital and hands, things which are scarce enough in the
vast territory of the frontier state of Coahuila.

D.

REPORT ON THE MINERAL RICHES OF LOWER CALIFORNIA.

The sparse population of this territory, the want of scientific
information in its inhabitants, and the difficulties which have existed
in the way of keeping up an intercourse with their fellow-citizens of
the centre of the republic, are causes weighty enough for explaining
the ignorance in which we live concerning the mineral riches of that
interesting peninsula. Without doubt, if we are permitted to judge of
it from the abundance of the precious metals which California of the
North and Sonora contain, and their contiguities, we ought to infer
that in the territory of Southern California the designated metals
should be found in considerable quantities. The official notices which
we possess in respect to Lower California fortify this conjecture.
Those exhibited by persons who lack competent instruction upon this
point contribute in part to foretell what will be the grade of
prosperity which will come in time with the developing of the mineral
industry in this territory.

Southern California, by its topographical position alone, is called to
occupy an important place, not only among the integral parts of the
nation, but even among foreign parts of America which are bounded by
the Pacific. If its first necessity is attended to, with the
augmentation of population commerce will come to give it the consequent
movement and animation, and the Mineria will come to complete the
circle of its prosperity; so that it is now difficult to perceive the
grand importance, commercial and political, which this despised
peninsula, which is called Lower California, will yet attain when the
transition of time and the sequel of events come to realize these
Utopian offspring of a patriotic sentiment; but we will occupy
ourselves with the statistical mineral notices of that territory.

There are nine mineral districts (_minerales_) which are now
recognized in California: their names are San Antonio, Zule, Santa
Anna, Muleje, Triumpho, Las Virgenes, El Valle Perdido, Los Flores,
Cuecuhilas. There is a range traversing from north to south for the
space of forty leagues in that territory, which contains also a
multitude of veins which have not been explored. In all these minerals
abound, but the irregular and inconstant labor of some of the mi