that of greta, $6; copper, of superior quality, $16 the hundred weight; the carga of coal, six reals [three fourths of a dollar], and wood, one real a mule-load. The ruins and the heaps of rubbish manifest that in other times there was much activity in the labor of the mines and haciendas for separating the metals; but to-day there are only in existence some furnaces, which are the least costly, which the miners of Coahuila can use for their metals. This they effect generally in ovens, and in galemes in the open plain. But this method of separating the metals, which Coahuilans have been necessitated to adopt as the least expensive, until quicksilver has notably fallen in price, has not remained stationary, as in other parts of the republic. These simple inhabitants have succeeded, by the force of experiments, in obtaining as a result the power of fusing 25 cargas [of 300 pounds] of metal, with the aggregation of 18 cargas of greta, in only one furnace and in the space of twenty-four hours, by consuming only 45 pounds of coal for each carga of metal.
There are three companies in that state for working the mines in the mineral district of Ramirez, and another in that of Trinudco. There is no notice of the amount of funds employed, but it is presumed that they are not considerable, by considering the smallness of the fortunes of the inhabitants of the frontier.
In government and economy of mines the Assembly of Mineria of the valley of Santa Rosa have jurisdiction, but in litigations the judges of first instance have jurisdiction, to whom a particular law of this state gives authority.
In Coahuila, besides silver, there is found virgin iron in masses of considerable volume and of extraordinary value in the Sierra of Mercudo, in Guadalupe,