the want of conveniences in exploration of the mines failed to engender the stimulus of acquiring and preserving the proprietorship of the discoveries, and where, with the same facility with which they abandon one known vein, they proceed to work another new vein—in a country where the great part of the inhabitants might well be considered as tribes that have only reached the first grades of civilization, rather than organized societies, it is not strange that there is a want of mineral recognizances where only the mines at which the metals are easily procured, and not costly in extracting from the ore, are worked.
Notwithstanding that which has been said, there are various residents of the mineral districts referred to that extract gold and silver sufficient to cover their commercial transactions, to pay their laborers and the salaries of their operatives, to procure certain necessaries, and to enjoy certain luxuries which many of their fellow-citizens do not enjoy. To ascertain to what value these extractions of metals ascend is extremely difficult for the want of data with which to aid any calculation.
The benefiting (extracting the metals from the ores) is no less imperfectly done than the labor of the mines. There are no haciendas for benefiting; many persons that engage themselves in mining speculations have in that territory one, two, and even five horse-mills, with which they grind the metal; this they mix with quicksilver and salt—imitating the process by the patio—in proportion of 50 pounds of the first and 75 of the second to 625 (25 arobas) of metal, and, proceeding by means of fusion in bad ovens, they obtain silver. Some others obtain it by means of vases of refining with the aid of lead.
The consumptions of the Californians in the extraction of the precious metals consist of quicksilver, salt,