Thus the mines, and the mining districts, by aggregating a large laboring population, in a country in which there were, until recently, but few manufactures, and in which the main body of the people engaged either in trades or in tending cattle, became the centre of some of the most active agricultural districts. "The most fertile portions of the table land are the Baxio, which is immediately contiguous to Guanajuato, and comprises a portion of Valladolid, Guadalajara, Queretaro, and Guanajuato. The valley of Toluca, and the southern part of the state of Valladolid, both supply the capital and the mining districts of Tlalpujahua, El Oro, Temascaltepec and Angangeo;--the plains of Pachuca and Appam, which extend on either side to the foot of the mountains upon which the mines of Real del Monte Chico are situated;--Itzmiquilpan, which owes its existence to Zimapan;--Aguas Calientes, by which the great mining town of Zacatecas is supplied;--a considerable circle in the vicinity of Sombrerete and Fresnillo;--the valley of Jarral and the plains about San Luis Potosi, which town again derives its name from the mines of the Cerro de San Pedro, about four leagues from the gates, the supposed superiority of which to the celebrated mines of Potosi in Peru gave rise to the appellation of Potosi. A little farther north we find the district of Matehuala, now a thriving town with more than seven thousand inhabitants, created by the discovery of Catorce, while about the same time, in the latter part of the last century, Durango rose into importance from the impulse given to the surrounding country by the labors of Zambrano at San Dimas and Guarisamey. Its population increased in twelve years from eight to twenty thousand; while whole streets and squares were added to its extent by the munificence of that fortunate miner. To the extreme north, Santa Eulalia gave rise to the town of Chihuahua; Batopilas and El Parral became each the centre of a little circle of cultivation; Jesus Maria produced a similar effect; Mapimi, Cuencame, and Inde, a little more to the southward, served to develope the natural fertility of the banks of the river Nazas; while in the low hot regions of Sonora and Sinaloa, on the western coast, almost every place designated on the map as a town, was originally and generally is still a Real, or district for mines."[20]