a consequence of the copious snows that have fallen over our region during the past days, especially on the peaks of the Valley of Carranza, there has appeared down in the valley a strong pack of wolves that is inflicting great losses on herds of sheep and cattle." Announcements of planned wolf culls were numerous during those cold days of 1857...The snow fell over all of northern Spain from Galicia to Catalonia...On February 4 the province of Santander had spent three months without links with the interior, completely snowed in. "No one remembers such a prolonged spell of bad weather." To compound the problem the main domestic industry also went into crisis. From the second half of the 19th century onward Galicia's textile industry suffered a severe crisis brought on by the legal importation and the smuggling in of foreign fabrics, and many families endured hardship because there was no alternate source of employment. To make matters worse, the agricultural sector went into crisis between the years 1850–1860, destabilizing the rural economy. The composite crisis forced the population to look for a better life overseas. The economic downturn accelerated the existing emigration. There is evidence of a strong current of emigration from the year 1810 to 1853 that is difficult to quantify because the Spanish government did not condone emigration officially. Consequently, some authors refer to this obscure period as the period of clandestine emigration. But from 1836 onward Spain began to grant official recognition to her newly independent colonies. Mexico was the first former colony to be recognized in 1836 and Uruguay, Chile and Argentina followed soon thereafter. As a result, emigration intensified...In December 1836 there appeared the first commercial advertisement offering transatlantic passage—aboard the [slave-ship] General Laborde—from A Coruña to Montevideo, Buenos Aires and other destinations in Mar del Plata. The offer of transatlantic crossings increased progressively. The majority of the crossings was made on sailing ships. In 1850 the brigantine Juan departed from Carril advertised as a first-class steamer. Relatively reliable data suggest that 93,040 Galicians left between the years 1836 and 1860. The Spanish government legalized emigration in 1853, and this made the count reliable: 122,875 people left Galicia between the years 1860–1880. The census of 1857 found 1,776,879 inhabitants in the region. Therefore, according to all these figures, over 12% of the population left Galicia during the period 1836–1880. Emigration continued well into the 20th