[79] When I was first at the city of Mexico, Governor Letcher introduced to me a son of the late emperor, who had a claim for land in California which he had not located before the annexation. I advised him, without a fee, that our courts did not recognize foreign "floats," and that, by his own _laches_, he had lost his claim, which he now spread along the Sacramento River for 400 miles. Finding out, after an expenditure of several thousand dollars, the defect, he got a new claim from the late President Lombardini of thirty miles square, which he will probably now pin tight in Sonora. The defect of our two last treaties with Mexico was in not having a clause inserted reducing all titles to land to six miles square, as a consideration for the enhanced value by the annexation. [80] I would not like to make such extravagant statements on my own authority, however satisfactory the testimony might be to myself, for the abundance of silver in Sonora is beyond the belief of most men. But, fortunately, I have, in Ward's "Mexico," an authority that can not be disputed. The work is accessible to all my readers. The author was charged by the British government with an examination of the mines of Mexico. [81] Ward, vol. ii. p. 578. [82] Ibid. [83] I do not know exactly how to translate the Spanish idea attached to the words _creador de plata_ unless by saying that it is a spot where baser substances are supposed to be converted into silver by some unknown process of nature. APPENDIX. A. MINERIA REPORT ON THE MINERAL RICHES OF SONORA. Among the five-and-twenty states and territories that compose the Mexican confederation, there is no other which contains in its respective territory the like wonderful mineral riches which abound in the state of which we treat. This would appear almost fabulous; but there is proof enough from the testimony of many residents of that state, and from the assertion of travelers, from the evidences which the archives of the various missions exhibit, and from the royal registry of mines (_reales de minas_), and, lastly, from the indubitable fact of the production of great quantities of gold and silver from the mines and _placers_ of this state, considering the small amount of forces, and its isolation from all the principal settlements of the republic by reason of the distance which separates it from them.