The general metallic production of the country,—which was of course impeded by the revolutionary state of New Spain between 1809 and 1826,—has arisen refreshed from its slumber, so that, according to the best accounts it has ascended to perhaps twenty millions annually in total production, in consequence of the prolific yield of the workings at Fresnillo, Chihuahua, and Sonora, independent of the abundant production at Zacatecas.
The Mexican mines were eagerly and even madly seized by the English, and even by the people of the United States, as objects of splendid speculation, as soon as the country became settled; but, in consequence of bad management, or the wild spirit of gambling which assumed the place of prudent commercial enterprise, the holders of stock were either disappointed or sometimes ruined. Subsequently, however, the proprietors have learned that prudence and the experience of old Mexican miners was better than the theoretical principles upon which they designed producing larger revenues than had ever been obtained by the original Spanish workmen. Their imported modern machinery and engines for voiding water from the shafts and galleries is the chief beneficial improvement introduced since the revolution; but the enormous cost of transporting the heavy materials, in a country where there are no navigable rivers extending into the heart of the land, and where the usual mode of carriage is on the backs of mules, by wretched roads over mountains and through ravines, has often absorbed large portions of the original capital before the proprietors even began to employ laborers to set up their foreign engines. Many of the first British and American adventurers or speculators have, thus, been ruined by unskilful enterprises in Mexican mines. Their successors, however, are beginning to reap the beneficial results of this expenditure, and, throughout the republic steam engines, together with the best kinds of hydraulic apparatus, have superseded the Spanish malacates.