idea of mexican wealth.

From the Travels of Humboldt.

This traveller affirms that the riches of Mexico are infinitely superior to those of Peru. I know of no Peruvian family (says he) in the possession of a fixed and certain revenue of 130, 000 francs, ($26,000); but in Mexico there are no individuals who possess no mines, and whose revenue amounts to a million of francs, ($200,000.)

The family of the Count de la Valenciano, possesses alone, on the ridge of the Andes a property worth 25 millions of francs, ($5,000,000), without including the mine of Valeciano, which yields, one year with another, a nett revenue of 1,500,000 livres, ($240,000).

The Count de Regia built, at his own expense, two vessels of the largest size, worth $600,000, and presented them to the King of Spain.

The family of Fagoaga, well known for its beneficence, intelligence, and zeal for the public good, exhibits the example of the greatest wealth, which was ever derived from a mine.

A single vein which the marquis of Fagoaga possesses, in the districh of Sombredath, left in five or six months, all charges deducted, a nett profit of 4 million of dollars.

The European reader will be still more astonished when I inform him of the extraordinary fact that this family lent, about the year 1800, a sum of more than three millions and a half of francs, ($700,000,) without interest, to a friend whose fortune they believed would be made by it in a solid manner.

To complete the view of the immense wealth centered in the hands of a few individuals in Mexico, it is only necessary to add, that, amongst instances of individual opulence, nine clergymen only possess an annual income, collectively, of 539,000 dollars--a sum almost equal to the whole expenses of the civil government of the United States.