The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-02-21
MINING IN MEXICO.
Reopening of All Abandoned Mines
of the Padres.

San Francisco Call: One of the inter-
esting features of mining in Mexico of re-
cent years has been the reopening of the
old abandoned mines OF the Spanish
padres Many of these hava developed
into the most valuable properties of the
/ country.
Under the padre system the mines were
operated by Mexican and Indian poems
and generally worked to d water level,
with pillars of ore left standing to sup
port the ground
The ores were then reduced by either
arastras. patios or small adobe furnaces,
which process was very slow, and the
gold and silver bullion produced was then
exported by the Spanish masters to Eu-
rope, leaving the yawning excavations,
the church records and an impoverished
( people as Mexico's share of the profits.
After freaing themselves from the rule
! of SPAIN the MeXicanS and Indians of the
country turned their attention TO the pill
/ lars of ore left by their former rulers, and
these for years furnished than occupa-
ton. They having in degree benefited
I by their experience with the foreigner, re-
duced their ores by the same slow metal
/ lurgical process
Mexico is a slow country in which TO do
business. and to attempt to open a nina
there and supply it with milling plant
is an undertaking calculated to try the
patience of Job.
- Mule trails constitute the roads and
highways. and instead of the freight
wagons and prairie schooners of the
United States. the Mexican freighter util-
ICES the hurricane deck of a Mexican
burro. and with these little beasts of bur-
den all freight and supplies are trans
ported throughout the interior mining
country.
An American in this country would hest
tate to carry a large quartz mill from San
Francisco to Grass valley or to the Sis
kiyous with pack train. but a, Mexican.
provided with a sufficient number of
buFros little parched corn and stock
of cigarettes will wade into the trans
narration business and land the mill
due course of tine.
A good example of this is the Batapilas
mill of 60 stamps and steam plant that
was packed in sections for 800 miles
through the Sierra Madre mountains.
Placer mining has received less atten-
ton in Mexico than other branches of
the mining industry. This is mainly due
TO the scarcity of water. There are in
various sections large placer fields that
would yield fortunes if water could be
obtained. in the absence of which the
natives work the richer places by the
process of dry washing"
Prospecting by the foreigner has been
chiefly confined to the old abandoned
mines. which at best is rather a blind
undertaking, as the ''ancients (as they
are called seem to have prospected the
country very thoroughly. In most in
stances they succeeded in working out
the surface ground. so that the indica-
tons to which the latter-day miner pins
his faith are the old depressions. together
with the dumps, by the size of which he
calculates how extensively the old min
ing had been carried on.
The old arastra beds and Stag piles from
the primitive adobe smelters are also fig
ured upon as something to assist in their
calculations.
Owing 10 the methods of milling and
smelling then in vogue the Spaniards and
natives assorted the high-grade ores from
those of lesser value. leaving the second
grade or refuse on the dumps.
Many of these second-grade dumps have
been discovered which contain thousands
of tons of ore that can be handled at a
profit with modern milling and concen-
trating machinery.
The time IS coming. and that speedily
when the crude mining methods prevail
ing IN cur sister republic win have be-
come a thing of the past. Railroads will
conect her isolated mining camps with
the outside world and Mexiacn mining
centers viii have been established. which
will rival Virginia City. Butte and Dem
YER