railroad has exceeded all calculations, and yet it is but partially
developed, the rolling stock being quite inadequate to the demand for
freight transportation.
In minerals it would seem as though the list of products was unequaled.
At present the silver mines are undoubtedly the greatest source of
wealth to the country, though under proper conditions the agricultural
capacity of the land would doubtless exceed all other interests in
pecuniary value, as indeed is the case in most other gold and silver
producing countries. The principal mineral products of Mexico are iron,
tin, cinnabar, silver, gold, alum, sulphur, and lead. In the state of
Durango, large masses of the best magnetic iron ore are found, which at
some future day will supply the material for a great and useful
industry. Other iron mines exist, and some have been utilized to a
limited extent. Coal is found in abundance, notably in the states of
Oaxaca, Sonora, Nuevo Leon, and Coahuila. These coal measures are
particularly valuable in a country many parts of which are treeless and
without economical fuel. The total coinage of silver ore in the mints of
Mexico to this date, we were intelligently informed, amount to the
enormous aggregate of three thousand millions of dollars, to which may
be added, in arriving at the total product of the mines, the amount
exported in bars and the total value consumed in manufactures. This last
item amounts to a much larger figure than one who has not given the
subject careful thought would be prepared to admit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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