The mines of Mexico, or what was formerly called New Spain, have been more celebrated for their riches than those of La Plata, notwithstanding which they are remarkable for the poverty of the mineral they contain. A quintal, or sixteen hundred ounces of silver ore, affords, at a medium, not more than three or four ounces of pure silver, about one-third of what is yielded by the same quantity of mineral in Saxony. It is not, therefore, on account of the richness of the ore, but from its abundance and the facility of working it, that these mines have been so much superior to those of Europe. The fact of the small number of persons employed in working them, is not less contrary to the commonly received opinion on this subject. The mines of Guanaxuato, infinitely richer than those of Potosi ever were, afforded from 1706 to 1803, nearly forty millions of dollars in gold and silver, or very nearly five millions of dollars annually, being somewhat less than one-fourth of the whole quantity of gold and silver from New Spain; notwithstanding which, these mines, productive as they were, did not employ more than five thousand workmen of every description. In Mexico, the labor of the mines was perfectly free, and better paid than any other kind of industry, a miner earning from five to five dollars and a half weekly, while the wages of the common laborer did not exceed a dollar and a half. The =tenateros=, or persons who carried the ore on their backs, from the spot where it was dug out of the mine, to that where it was collected in heaps, had a sum equal to a dollar and ten cents for a day’s work of six hours. Neither slaves, criminals, nor forced laborers, were employed in the Mexican mines. In consequence of the clumsy, imperfect and expensive mode of clearing them from water, several of the richest of these mines have been overflowed and abandoned; while the lack of method in the arrangement of the galleries, and the absence of lateral communications, have added to the risk, and greatly increased the expense of working them. Labor has not been, as in the working of the European mines, abridged, nor the transportation of materials facilitated. When new works were undertaken, a due consideration was not bestowed on the preliminary arrangements; and they were always conducted on too large and expensive a scale.