The measure of success did not compare with that attained in the time of the Spaniards, however, owing to the lesser energy displayed, but proved amply sufficient to repay the timid efforts of the native speculators. Not until the year 1862 did American enterprise direct its efforts in so promising a direction. A purchase was effected by an American company, composed principally of gentlemen interested in Wells, Fargo & Co., whereby the property embracing the famous veins of San Antonio and El Carmen passed into their hands. They operated with great success in the face of many difficulties until the year 1879, when the property again changed hands, and was acquired by a stock company, which has held and worked it to the present day. The American companies in this, the richest mining district in the world, are: The Batopilas Mining Company, the Todos Santos Silver Mining Company, and the Santo Domingo Silver Mining Company. The Mexican mining companies are quite numerous, as may be supposed, but I shall not detail them, as it would require too much space. Many of them are very important, as the Urique and Cerro Colorado companies. Altogether there are over a hundred in a greater or less degree of active operation in this rich district, all contained within a radius of four miles. Of these the Batopilas Mining Company owns and operates over sixty. It is without doubt one of the most important American mining ventures in Mexico. It is also a mining company that has had great difficulties to contend with. Its isolation in the establishment of a business of such magnitude in the heart of the Sierra Madres in so short a number of years is an accomplishment suggestive of great energy. This company owns nearly all the famous old mines in this district which, in the times of the Spaniards, yielded those fabulous bonanzas that caused the astonishment of the world. It has had to repair the follies which, from a scientific standpoint, were committed by several generations of inexpert and short-sighted Mexican mine owners. It has had to clear the old mines of immense masses of rock and dirt which had accumulated during many decades of abandonment, "gutting and scalping," as the miners say. Recently over one hundred miles of openings have been made. The most important is the great Porfirio Diaz tunnel, to be 3-1/2 miles in length when completed--one of the longest and most important mining tunnels in the world, cutting over sixty well-known veins at the river's level. No one can look at the great mills, the aqueduct of enormous masonry (eight or nine miles long, and that will take up all the water of the Batopilas river), or the town of Batopilas (a most active place of six thousand people) without respecting the energy that has accomplished all this. The history of Batopilas is only the history of many other mining districts throughout this country, and the fortunes taken from these mines, and those still behind in them, seem unreal and bordering on