Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain: With Physical Sections and Maps Founded on Astronomical Observations and Trigonometrical and Barometrical Measurements, Volume 3 |
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abundance according already amalgamation America amounted annually appears beds called carried century Cerro coast cochineal colonies commerce considerable considered contains copper Cruz cultivation depth direction discovered district eight employed estimated Europe exportation extent extracted feet fifth five four francs frequently furnished gold and silver greatest Guanaxuato half hand hundred imported increase Indians inhabitants intendancy iron Islands kingdom less livres manufacture marcs of silver mass means mercury metals metres Mexican Mexico millions of piastres minerals mines mixed mountains muriate native nature nearly never observed operations period Peru Potosi pounds precious present produce province quantity quintals Real rich rock Santa sometimes South Spain Spanish species Sterling sugar supplied thousand tion tournois town Trans Valenciana veins wealth whole wrought yield Zacatecas
Popular passages
Page 444 - Such principles as prescribe the rooting up the vine and the olive, are not calculated to favour manufactures. A colony has for ages, been only considered as useful to the parent state, in so far as it supplied a great number of raw materials, and consumed a number of the commodities carried there by the ships of the mother country. It was easy for different commercial...
Page 105 - Señor, que tiene cuidado, y siempre lo ha tenido, de proveer en la mayor prisa, que topé entre los naturales de una provincia que se dice Tachco, ciertas piecezuelas de ello, a manera de moneda muy delgada, y procediendo por mi pesquisa, hallé que en la dicha provincia, y aun en otras, se trataba por moneda...
Page 142 - The muriate of silver, which is so seldom found in the veins of Europe, is very abundant in the mines of Catorce, Fresnillo, and the Cerro San Pedro, near the town of San Luis Potosi. That of Fresnillo is frequently of an olive green,, which passes into leek-green.
Page 38 - The exportation of these horses to Natchez and New Orleans, becomes every year of greater importance. Many Mexican families possess in their Hatos de ganado, from thirty to forty thousand head of horses and oxen. The mules would be still more numerous, if so many of them did not perish on the highways from the excessive fatigues of journeys of several months.
Page 99 - I was presented with gold plate and jewels of such precious workmanship, that unwilling to allow them to be melted, I set apart more than a hundred thousand ducats worth of them to be presented to your imperial highness. These objects were of the greatest beauty, and I doubt if any other prince of earth ever possessed any thing similar to them.
Page 81 - How could they be found in a country, where according to the ideas of the common people, all that is necessary to happiness, is bananas, salted flesh, a hammock, and a guitar? The hope of gain is too weak a stimulus, under a zone, where beneficent nature provides to man a thousand means of procuring an easy and peaceful existence without quitting his country, and without struggling with the monsters of the ocean. For a long time, the Spanish government has looked with an evil eye on the cachalot...
Page 466 - Indiat, fol. 112. [BOOK v. all casts, whites, mestizoes and Indians are employed. The academy of fine arts, and the schools for drawing in Mexico and Xalapa have very much contributed to diffuse a taste for beautiful antique forms. Services of plate to the value of a hundred and fifty, or two hundred thousand francs, have been lately manufactured at Mexico, which for elegance and fine workmanship may rival the finest work of the kind ever executed in the most civilized parts of Europe.
Page 332 - Immense wealth has been found even at the surface both in the mountain of Gualgayoc, which rises like a fortified castle in the midst of the plain, and at Fuentestiana, at Cormolache, and at la Pampa de Navar. In this last, plain for an extent of more than half a square league wherever the turf has been removed, sulphuretted silver has been extracted and filaments of native silver adhere to the roots of the gramina.
Page 234 - The labour of a miner is entirely free throughout the whole kingdom of New Spain; and no Indian or Mestizo can be forced to dedicate themselves to the working of mines. It is absolutely false, though the assertion has been repeated in works of the greatest estimation, that the court of Madrid sends out galley slaves to America, to work in the gold and silver mines.
Page 126 - The vein of Guanaxuato alone, yields more than a fourth part of the whole silver of Mexico and a sixth part of the produce of all America. In the general view already presented by us, the principal mines are confounded with those from which a very small quantity of metal is extracted. The disproportion between the two classes is so great that more than...
Bibliographic information
| Title | Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain: With Physical Sections and Maps Founded on Astronomical Observations and Trigonometrical and Barometrical Measurements, Volume 3 Volume 3 of Political Essay of the Kingdom of New Spain, Alexander von Humboldt Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain: With Physical Sections and Maps Founded on Astronomical Observations and Trigonometrical and Barometrical Measurements, Alexander von Humboldt |
| Author | Alexander von Humboldt |
| Edition | 3 |
| Publisher | Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1822 |
| Original from | Harvard University |
| Digitized | Dec 14, 2005 |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |