All those places in Sonora which are actually abandoned, as well as all the lands of that state, are susceptible of producing great riches. The reasons on which these assertions are founded are those which M. Saint Clair Duport mentions in speaking of the probable variation there will be in value of gold and silver in time, by reason of the great extractions hereafter of these metals, particularly in California [this was before the annexation of California] and Sonora, where, as in the Ural Mountains, and the Altai Mountains of Central Asia, gold is extremely abundant, and because in the placers mentioned explorers have recognized gold in dust, which they have not washed for want of water in some, and from the difficulty that exists in others in order to work them, such as those of Arizuma and La Papagueria.
Nothing could be said in relation to the number of operatives who are employed in working the mines of this state, nor the day-laborers; nor in respect to articles consumed there, as well in the digging of the metals as in extracting them from the ores, because, as has already been said, his Excellency the Governor has not been able to give the notices which have been sought, and there are no other better authorities through whom information can be procured. For in this state there are no mining courts,[84] ] but the ordinary judges of first instance are the authorities which take cognizance of matters which occur in the department of the Mineria.
There are no companies for the exploration of the mines in that remote state. Some inhabitants, in distant periods, have procured the formation of numerous caravans with the character of companies, and with the object of collecting precious metals, which they encountered in the placers of Arizuma and of Papagueria, but until now they have not been able to hold with effect undertakings so laudable.
Various are the causes on account of which the riches which lie buried through all parts of the immense territory of the State of Sonora have not been explored. Some of these reasons have already been referred to, but, for greater clearness, we take this opportunity to recapitulate them all. The first, which are much noted, are the following:
1st. The absolute want of personal security.
2d. The scarcity of population, and of the means of subsistence for the few hands that they were able to have devoted to working mines in the immediate vicinity of hostile Indians.
3d. The irregularity and the want of experience and capital in those who have undertaken the exploration and the extraction of metals, which has occasioned the abandonment of this class of speculations whenever they presented any difficulties, or commenced to be more costly by failing to produce metals upon the surface of the earth. Some certain speculations which have been directed with regard to the rules which regulate mineral industry, and have been prosecuted with capital, have well compensated the labors and efforts of the proprietors.
Gold and silver, as above said, are not the only mineral productions of Sonora. In the part of Muchachos, situated in the Sierra Madre, between Tueson and Tubac, and in Mogollon, a place situated in the mountains of Apuchuria, in those of Papagueria, and near the Colorado, are found great masses of virgin iron, and abundant veins of the same metal. Cinnabar was discovered in 1802 in the hill of Santa Teresa, situated in the mineral of Rio Chico; and in the hills which are at the north of the Colorado, it has been found in the past age. Copper is also found in Antunes, Tonuco, Bacauchí, Pozo de Crisante, Sierra de Guadalupe, Sierra de la Papagueria, and particularly in the Couanea, from whence have been extracted great quantities of this metal, with a great ley of gold. Metals of lead (metales plomosos) abound in Agua Caliente, Alamo-Muerto, La Papagueria, Arispe, and La Cieneguilla. From these two last points have been taken considerable quantities of them, for supplying all other mines of the state [to aid in fusion], and for munitions of war. Copperas, or sulphate of iron, is abundant in San Javier, San Antonio de la Huerta, and Agua Caliente. In the first of these placers a vein runs from south to north, from pieces of which, dissolved in water, there results a tint which, by evaporation, forms into grains, and produces the same effect as the tint of China. In Cucurpe is amianto, or incombustible crystal, which the ancients so much valued. Marbles of various classes and colors, as well as alabasters and jaspers, are found in Opasura, Hermosillo, Uores, La Campana, and other points; but we do not know as yet the place from which the Aztecs obtained the beautiful reddish marble which they used in the construction of their divinity of Chapultepec, which is preserved in the National Museum, and which, according to all conjectures and probabilities, proceeded from the quarries of marble of that state. There are quarries of the stone of chrispa, and even the magnet in Alamas, Hermosillo, in Sierras of the frontier, and in the causada of Barbitas, ten leagues distant from Hermosillo, near the route of La Cieneguilla. Muriate and carbonate of soda, saltpetre, or nitrate of potassa, are found in the margin of the rivers which empty into the Gulf of Cortéz [of California], and particularly in the mouths of the Colorado.
B.