79 ([Return])
When I was first at the city of Mexico, Governor Letcher introduced to me a son of the late emperor, who had a claim for land in California which he had not located before the annexation. I advised him, without a fee, that our courts did not recognize foreign "floats," and that, by his own laches, he had lost his claim, which he now spread along the Sacramento River for 400 miles. Finding out, after an expenditure of several thousand dollars, the defect, he got a new claim from the late President Lombardini of thirty miles square, which he will probably now pin tight in Sonora. The defect of our two last treaties with Mexico was in not having a clause inserted reducing all titles to land to six miles square, as a consideration for the enhanced value by the annexation.
80 ([Return])
I would not like to make such extravagant statements on my own authority, however satisfactory the testimony might be to myself, for the abundance of silver in Sonora is beyond the belief of most men. But, fortunately, I have, in Ward's "Mexico," an authority that can not be disputed. The work is accessible to all my readers. The author was charged by the British government with an examination of the mines of Mexico.
81 ([Return])
Ward, vol. ii. p. 578.
82 ([Return])
Ibid.
83 ([Return])
I do not know exactly how to translate the Spanish idea attached to the words creador de plata unless by saying that it is a spot where baser substances are supposed to be converted into silver by some unknown process of nature.