The weekly Arizonian., 1859-07-07

| void of force. Such notes on mining, as those of Mr. Wilson's, are of no value at all, as they lack all consistency, and bear the stamp of the authors ignorance in such matters on the face For instance he cites without comment,l page 416, in his book Mexico, it's Peasants and its Priests" the following on Lower California :: "The beneftting is no lnss perfectly done than the labor at the mines. There are no ha- ciendas for bene6tting. Many persons tLat en- gage themselves in mining speculations have one, two, and even five horse mills, with which they grind the metal; this they mix with quick silver and salt, initiating the process by the of the first and 75 lbs of the second to 625 lbs of metal. and proceeding by nsedns of. fusion tn. bad opens, they obtained siver' &c. &c. ,J
 Now can assure MT. Wilson that the few poor mines worked by a few poor miners in Lower California, are worked precisely es those in Mexico and Peru. There is no such absurd thing as mixed process of patio and furnace. will perceive that quicksilver placed in hot furnace would immediately evaporate without producing the slightest change on the admixed ore and salt, which require an infinitely higher heat to be in any way affected at all. suppose this is the first time that quicksilver is cited as a plan for smelling. 'e-.
 In another part of his work, page -, he says that the freight alone of one steam engine at the Francisco mines in Mexico amounted to over 100000 of dollars. Shortly afterwards :" of the various pumping machinery, just one half of their cost was caused by the freight from the sea coast to the place of erection" Now, this is merely absurd. He does not state the. rate of freight, put allowing Tn the engine case the same rate as that for the pumps, then this engine must have originally cost $l, ,OoO OoO.- Rather gigantic affair this, and liable to cause . tremendous blowing up of any company, no matter how large or rich. ise i
 These are merely undigested statements, and only serve to throw doubt over others more pro. bable. It is strange that MT. Wilson, the matter of fact man, should have allowed himself to be carried away by the fabulous and most ridicu- lous mining stories, and to base on such foun- dstions the future grandeur of Northern Mexico. While we agree with him in many things regar- ding the much exaggerated Aztec civilization, its mud monuments and barn-like architecture of the same material the same now in use amongst the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, we very much distrust his authority in mining matters. His pictures of Northern Mexico, where he never was, are entirely overdrawr, and erroneous. .rfla E
 If we wish to cite numbers and examples of rich mines, there is no necessity of going back to the fabulous ages ot romance, We can find them sufficiently grand for all reasonable pur- poses nearer home, and nearer to our own times. Where is there parallel to Calfornia's 5OO,ooO, 900 dollars produced in only ten years What history can show an equal to the great gold fields of Australia and Siberia Compared to these all the silver mines in the world sink
 into insigni6cAnce. It is true they have pro- duced similar sums, but it took centuries to accomplish it.
 As it may be interesting to some of your readers we will give few notes on some of the great mines of the day:
 THE REAL DEL MONTE SILVER MINES.
 These mines are four in number, and belong to mixed company of Mexicans and Euro peans. They are situated about 5000 feet above the level of the ocean, in the highlands of Mex ico some twenty leagues from the capital AL ready last century large sums of silver were ex- A. lN