encroachments of power, the social degradation of large masses by unjust or unwise systems, or the enforced operation of oppressive laws, and a virgin country is forthwith assigned to man in which the principle of self government may be tried without the necessity of casting off by violence the old fetters of feudalism. The increasing industry or invention of the largely augmented populations of the earth, exacts either a larger amount or a new standard of value for the precious metals, and regions are discovered among the frosts and forests of a far off continent, in which the fable of the golden sands of Pactolus is realized. The labor of men and the flight of time strip commercial countries of their trees, yet, in order to support the required supply of fuel, not only for the comfort and preservation but also for the industry of the race, the heart of the earth beneath the soil which is required for cultivation, is found to be veined with inexhaustible supplies of mineral coal.
The bounty and the protective forethought of God for his creatures is not only intimated but proved by these benevolent storehouses of treasure, comfort and freedom; and whilst we acknowledge them with proper gratitude, we should not forget that their acquirement and enduring possession are only to be paid for by labor, economy, and social as well as political forbearance.
We do not think these observations out of place in a chapter devoted to the mineral wealth of Mexico. The subject of property and its representative metals, should be approached in a reflective and christian spirit, in an age in which the political and personal misery of the overcrowded masses of Europe, is forcing them to regard all who are better provided for, or more fortunate by thrift or the accident of birth, as enemies of the poor. The demagogue leaders of these wretched classes, pushing the principle of just equalization to a ridiculous and hideous extreme, have not hesitated to declare in France, since the revolution of February, 1848, that "property is robbery."1 We shall not pause to examine or refute the false dogma of a dangerous incendiary. The common sense