romance. There is one mine near the city of Chihuahua, the Santa Eulalia, which in days gone by built the fine cathedral at that place at a cost of eight hundred thousand dollars. This was done by simply paying a tax of about twenty-five cents on every pound of silver mined, which was ample atonement for any or all sins that the owners could commit. From Batopilas, north or south, the mighty range of mountains lowers in height, while the big barrancas do not cut so deep into their flanks anywhere else as here, giving the finest Alpine scenery to be found in this part of the continent. Some of the outside facts regarding the mines are really more interesting than the mines themselves. The miners work in the hot interiors bare to the skin, except their sandals and a breechcloth. Even these have to be examined when they emerge from the mine after the work is over. The sandals are taken off and beaten together, while the breechcloth is treated in the same manner if the examiner demands it. Of course the miners are usually known to the examiner, and his searches vary with the supposed honesty of the different workmen. In a mine where pure silver has been known to be cut out with cold chisels by the mule load, and sent direct to the retorts for smelting, the temptation was very great to purloin a little with each departure from the mine; and accounts of the sly efforts of some of the thieves appear more like the yarns in detective stories than cold facts. Ventilating tubes, small as gas pipe and covered with wire gauze, have been used to transfer the metal from the interior to the exterior of the mine for quite long distances. Imitation kits of tools have been made of drills, hammers, etc., all of which were hollow and used for stuffing in stray bits of solid silver. Even candles and candle holders were made hollow and thus used for stealing. I could give a dozen other most singular means employed by these miners in their pilferings. The tunneling of the old Spaniards was very slow compared with that now done by machinery. In some places there were evidences that they had heated the stones by fire and had then thrown water thereon, shivering the front by sudden chilling, a method yet employed in Honduras and Guatemala, according to an engineer at Batopilas who had recently arrived from those countries.