Part 24 (1/2)
The most important mines in the State of San Luis Potosi are those near Cuatorce. In the midst of bleak and precipitous mountain ridges is the village of Cuatorce, from which a circuitous mountain road leads to the entrance of the mining shafts, in which more wonderful things have occurred than in the wildest of the ”romances.” The story of Padre Flores is a familiar one, but will bear repeating.
PADRE FLORES.--CUATORCE.
The padre, being tired of the idle life of a pauper priest, bought, for a small sum, the claim of some still more needy adventurer. After following his small vein a little way, he came to a small cavern containing the ore in a state of decomposition. This, in California, would be called a ”rotten vein.” With all the difficulties to be encountered in obtaining a fair value for mineral in a crude state, the poor priest realized from his adventure over $3,000,000, which was considered a very fair fortune for an unmitred ecclesiastic.
The Mineral Report, mentioned in the last note, which is so full on the subject Fresnillo, insists that it is a continuation of the formation of Cuatorce and the other mines of San Luis. The mountains at Cuatorce are more dreary, bleak, and barren than in any other of the princ.i.p.al mining districts, as it is more exposed to the storms and tempests from the northeast and from the ocean. It was in this State of San Luis Potosi that Dr. Gardner's quicksilver mine was alleged to exist, and in the ineffectual efforts made to determine its whereabouts our government has become quite familiar with the location of all the worked mines of this state. The mines upon the mountains of Cuatorce are said to have been discovered in 1778 by a negro fiddler, who, being compelled to camp out on his way home from a dance, built a fire upon what proved to be an outcrop of a vein, and, in consequence, found in the morning, among the embers, a piece of virgin silver. It is a doubtful question among those who are anxious about trifles whether the name _Potosi_ given to this mine, owes its origin to the similarity between the mode of its discovery to that of the celebrated mines of that name in South America, or to the vast amount of silver at one time taken from it.
Guanajuato, when it yielded its six millions a year of silver, besides a fair supply of gold, was one of the most important States in the republic. With every successful speculation, new adventurers were found to invest their capital in resuming the working of abandoned mines, until at last men have become bold enough to undertake, for the third time, the draining of the great shaft of the Valenciana, so famous in the last century. When I was last in Mexico that undertaking was reported to have been accomplished. This mine is on a more magnificent scale than even the Real del Monte. Its central shaft alone cost a million of dollars; and though steam power can not be used, yet it is so dry that horse windla.s.ses can keep it clear of water. Its abandonment in every instance has been in consequence of some insurrectionary chief setting the works of the mine on fire, and not from any deficiency in its product of silver. When I was in Mexico, so little progress had been made in restoring the mine that it was not thought worth visiting. But the most sanguine hopes were entertained that it would again be as productive as in the times when its abundant riches secured for its owner the t.i.tle of Marquis of Valenciana, though he had worked with his own hands on the shaft which afterward yielded him its millions.
THE MINE OF LOS RAYAS.
Second in importance among the old mines of Guanajuato is _Los Rayas_.
Its history presents a new feature in the mining system of Mexico, not before mentioned, but which is important to a right understanding of the operation of the mining code. The right of discovery gives t.i.tle to two hundred _varas_ along the mine, and to two hundred _varas_ (about 500 feet) in depth. The consequence of this limitation is, that when a very rich claim is made, there immediately springs up a contest to get below it, and to cut off the lucky discoverer from the lower part of his expected fortune, and he has no means of avoiding such a result but by driving his shaft downward until he reaches a point below his first two hundred _varas_, which ent.i.tles him to claim another section downward.
This principle is strikingly ill.u.s.trated in the case of the famous mine of the priest Flores at Cuatorce, which he blasphemously named ”the Purse of G.o.d the Father,”[77] where there are marks of divers attempts being made to undermine him, though without success. But the case is a different one when the _bonanza_ is upon a high ridge, and it can be undermined by drifting in from a lower level. Then commences a lively contest to determine who can dig the fastest, and make the most rapid progress in this contest of mining and countermining.
The Marquis de los Rayas owes his t.i.tle and his princely fortune of $11,000,000 to a successful contest of this character. The Santa Amita was in _bonanza_, yielding an ore so pregnant with gold that the crude ma.s.s often sold for its weight in silver.
DEEP MINING.
Contests of this kind are very different from those which used to take place in California some years ago, when twenty feet square was marked off upon the top of a ridge, through which the claimant had to sink his shaft to the base rock on which the gold was supposed to be deposited.
When the rock was reached, it was often found difficult to keep the lines that had been marked off on the surface, particularly when the lead grew richer as it approached the border of the claim.
Controversies were frequent, and frequently resulted in subterranean quarrels and fights, and, of course, ended in superterranean lawsuits.
But the Mexican rival parties were seldom near enough for a fight, and the quarrel ended, as it began, in a contest to determine who could dig the fastest.
Another peculiar feature of deep mining is the construction of the main shafts. A description of the method of construction of one of these I take from Ward's Mexico,[78] a book that is otherwise of little value to a person seeking for information on the subject of mines at Guanajuata, so great has been the revolution there in a few years in the condition of mining affairs: ”I know few sights more interesting than the operation of blasting in the shafts of Los Rayas. After each quarryman (_barretero_) has undermined the portion of rock allotted to him, he is drawn up to the surface; the ropes belonging to the horse-windla.s.ses (_malacates_) are coiled up, so as to leave every thing clear below, and a man descends, whose business it is to fire the slow matches communicating with the mines below.
”As his chance of escaping the effects of the explosion consists in being drawn up with such rapidity as to be placed beyond the reach of the fragments of rock that are projected into the air, the lightest _malacate_ is prepared for his use, and two horses are attached to it, selected for their swiftness and courage, and are called the horses of _pegador_. The man is let down slowly, carrying with him a light and a small rope, one end of which is held by one of the overseers, who is stationed at the mouth of the shaft. A breathless silence is observed until the signal is given from below by pulling the cord of communication, when the two men by whom the horses are previously held release their heads, and they dash off at full speed until they are stopped either by the noise of the first explosion, or by seeing from the quant.i.ty of cord wound round the cylinder of the _malacate_ that the _pegador_ is already raised to a height of sixty or seventy _varas_ [Spanish yards], and is consequently beyond the reach of danger.”
The author then goes on to enumerate the risks that attend this calling of _pegador_, and the consequent high wages that have to be paid to persons who undertake this perilous office, all of which accidents and adventures must be familiar to those of my readers who have paid any attention to the business of blasting rocks; and as his hairbreadth escapes have nothing in them remarkable, we may conclude this notice of Los Rayas by adding his statement that the king's fifth from this mine, from 1556 to his time, amounted to the snug sum of $17,365,000. He gives only the sum reported, and makes no calculation for the large sums out of which the king was annually cheated at all the mines. That my reader may understand how a sum so apparently incredible as five or eight times seventeen millions of dollars could be taken out of a single mine, he must recollect that Los Rayas was a most productive mine shortly after the Conquest, and that for a century or two it was comparatively of little value, until Mr. Jose Sardaneta undertook the undermining of the rich mine of Santa Amita in 1740, and that afterward the rich product of the lower levels of the Santa Amita are included in this immense sum.
INDIANS AND SOLDIERS.
There is too much sameness in the details of the histories of the various other important mines of this State and of those in the adjoining State of Durango to justify the lengthening out this chapter, and I will conclude it with giving the substance of a statement I heard the American gentleman make on the subject of Indian depredations in the very centre of the republic, showing the great inconvenience suffered in consequence of the state of insecurity in which the people constantly live. A party of their own Indians, a most degraded band of cowardly vagabonds, that lived not a great way from the city, concluded to personify a company of northern savages, in order more successfully to plunder the inhabitants. With shoutings, these vagabonds rushed into the houses of the people, who were so paralyzed by the very sight of Indians in a hostile att.i.tude, that, without resistance, they suffered them to plunder whatever came within their reach which tempted their cupidity or l.u.s.t. At length, becoming satiated with liquor and champagne that they had taken from a carrier, they had to retire and camp out for the night. In their retreat they were pursued by a captain and soldiers of the regular army, who, being more numerous than the Indians, exhibited a great deal of courage until they came in sight of the savages, when, all at once, it was concluded to encamp for the night, and to resume the pursuit the next day, when the Indians would be at such a distance that they would not disturb their pursuers by their whooping.
[75] By reference to a long and able paper on the mines in the hill of Proano (Fresnillo), it appears that one half of the cost of four pumping-engines already in operation in that mine was the freight from Vera Cruz to the mine.
[76] This translation is bad enough, but no worse than the original.
[77] This will sound to Protestant readers something like horrible blasphemy; but it must be borne in mind that G.o.d the Father of the Catholics is an entirely different idea from the spiritual G.o.d whom we wors.h.i.+p. The devout Protestant who recognizes but one Being worthy of adoration, veneration, and wors.h.i.+p, never ventures to mention any of the names by which He is known but with the profoundest reverence. The Catholic, on the other hand, has a host of objects which he deems worthy of adoration, and seems to have cheapened the article by multiplying it. His senses are all exercised in his peculiar kind of wors.h.i.+p, and, as a natural consequence, they are apt to conclude that the Almighty enjoys those exhibitions that give them the greatest pleasure. They wors.h.i.+p him by performing a pantomime of the life and suffering of Christ, which is called the ma.s.s, and seek to propitiate him by offering the body of his Son in sacrifice. They bestow upon G.o.d gifts of jewels and of gold; and as he pa.s.ses through their streets in the form of a wafer, as they believe, the soldiers present arms, beat the drum, and discharge their cannon, as to an earthly prince. Though our Saviour (_Santo Christo_) heads the calendar of intercessors between G.o.d and man, he is seldom invoked, though they often honor him by naming their children after him. As they have conferred upon a mult.i.tude of their saints the supernatural powers of G.o.d, they have necessarily brought G.o.d himself down to earth. If I might be pardoned the expression, I should say that they treat him and his well-beloved Son with a loving intimacy. The wors.h.i.+p of the Catholics is substantially materialism, more or less gross, according to its distance from or its proximity to Protestantism.
There is no blasphemy, according to their system, in naming their shops after the Holy Ghost, a horse-stable after ”the Precious Blood,” though I could never hear them mentioned or see them without having my Protestant notions shocked, while I equally shocked their feelings by refusing to kneel to the Host, and slipping out of the way to avoid it. Nor could I exhibit the least reverence to their religious emblems without committing what in me would be an act of idolatry, the two systems being so diametrically opposite that one can not go a step toward the other without breaking over a fundamental doctrine of his own belief. G.o.d is an invisible Spirit, says the Protestant. G.o.d is a Spirit, answers the Catholic, but he daily a.s.sumes the form of a wafer, and traverses our streets, and in that form we most commonly wors.h.i.+p him. Such is the religious antagonism that will ever be found in the world while man remains what he now is, ever divided between mentalism and materialism. Forms and names often differ, but these are the two ideas into which all the religious systems of the world resolve themselves, although abortive attempts are often made to combine them.
[78] Vol. ii. p. 452.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV.