The marvellous country, or, Three years in Arizona and New Mexico.: Containing an authentic history of this wonderful country and its ancient civilization ... together with a full and complete history of the Apache tribe of Indians .../ By Samuel Woodworth Cozzens. Illustrated by more than one hundred engravings.

MASSES OF VIRGIV SILVER.
wealth of the country, describing its valleys as rich in precious stones, and its mountains as filled with silver, gold,
and copper.
Baron Humboldt, Ward the English ambassador, and
Wilson of later years, fully corroborate these statemlents;
and their testimony is confirmed by the records of the
Spanish crown, which acknowledge the receipt of dues paid
on masses of virgin silver, weighing from twenty to as high
as two hundred and eighty-four pounds.
If the reader is sufficiently curious to visit the old Custom
House at Guaymas, in Sonora, these statements can be substantiated by reference to the records found there. Among
the archives therein contained is rather a remarkable one,
establishing the fact that, in 1683, the King's attorney
brought suit to recover from the Proprietor of the Real del
Carmen mine, one Don Roderigo Gandera, a mass of virgin
silver, taken by him from his mine, weighing twenty-eight
hundred pounds, which the officer claimed as belonging to
the King,, because it was a curiosity; and all curiosities
taken from the soil, of whatever kind or nature, belonged
to His Most Gracious Majesty.
We are quite sure that the reader will agree with us in
considering such a mass of virgin silver as a curiosity indeed, but no greater one, perhaps, than the doctrine laid
down by the King's most eminent counsel in the case.
This was, without doubt, the largest mass of virgin silver
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