La Paz, one dollar and a half the _arroba_, or twenty-five
pounds. Why it is a submarine diving apparatus has not been employed in
this fishery, with all its advantages over Indian diving, I cannot say.
Yankee enterprise has not yet reached this new world. I cannot say this
either, as a countryman of ours, Mr. Davis, living at Loretta, has been
a most successful pearl-fisher, employing more Indians than any one
else engaged in the business. I am sorry to add that he has suffered
greatly by the war. The country about La Paz is a good grazing country,
but very dry. The mountains in the vicinity are said to be very rich in
minerals. Some silver mines near San Antonio, about forty miles south,
are worked, and produce well. La Paz may export one hundred thousand
dollars a-year of _platapina_. Gold-dust and virgin gold are brought to
La Paz. The copper and lead mines are numerous and rich. To the north
of La Paz are numerous safe and good harbours. Escondida, Loretta, and
Muleje are all good harbours, formed by the islands in front of the
main land.

"The island of Carmen, lying in front of Loretta, has a large salt
lake, which has a solid salt surface of several feet thickness. The
salt is of good quality, is cut out like ice, and it could supply the
world. It has heretofore been a monopoly to the governor of Lower
California, who employed convicts to get out the salt and put it on the
beach ready for shipping. It is carried about a quarter of a mile, and
is sent to Mazatlan and San Blas. A large quantity of salt is used in
producing silver. To the north of Muleje, which is nearly opposite
Guymas, the gulf is so much narrower that it is a harbour itself. No
accurate survey has ever been made of it--indeed, all the peninsula, as
well as the coast of Upper California, is laid down wrong on the
charts, being about twelve miles too far easterly. The English
Government now have two naval ships engaged in surveying the Gulf of
California.

"On the Pacific coast of the peninsula there is the great Bay of
Magdalena, which has fine harbours, but no water, provisions, or
inhabitants. Its shores are high barren mountains, said to possess
great mineral wealth. A fleet of whale-ships have been there during the
winter months of the last two years, for a new species of whale that
are found there, represented as rather a small whale, producing forty
or fifty barrels of oil; and, what is most singular, I was assured, by
most respectable w