CHAP. XXI.

AMERICAN MINES.

123

three hundred and fifty pounds for a space of sixhours. In the galleries of the mines (Valencianaand Rayas) they are exposed to a temperatureof from 71° to 77° of Fahrenheit, and during thistime they ascend and descend several thousandsteps in pits of an inclination of 45°. ”

“ We meet,” he says, “in the mines, with filesof fifty or sixty of these porters, among whomthere are men above sixty and boys of ten ortwelve years of age.”

The labour of this hardy race had been directedto the mines from the period when the Spaniardshad accomplished the quiet submission of thecountry. It was employed in numerous smallmines till about the beginning of the seventeenthcentury. But in or about the year 1630 themines of Guanaxuato began to be opened, or per-haps only greatly extended, as the historical factsbefore that period are rather doubtful. Sincethat time, however, during the whole of that andthe following century, the progress in the labour,and of the results of it, have been regularlyincreasing. The mines of Tasco, Zultepec, Pa-ehuca, and Tlapujahua, whose workings had com-menced at the earliest period of the Spanish do-minion, had languished in a state of comparativeinactivity, but in the period from 1620 to theend of that century had gone on regularly in-creasing, and the same was the case with thosemines which are within the district of Zaccatecas.