vigorous rubbing with soap and water, was
slowly restored from bright vermilion to my
normal shade of colour.

On reaching the surface, the ore is conveyed
by the tram-cart to the sorting-shed; here it is
broken and carefully picked over by skilful
hands, great care being needed in selection, as
much valuable ore might be thrown away, or a
large quantity of useless rock taken to the
smelting furnaces. The picked ore is placed in
large bags made of sheepskin, and weighed;
the bags are then hauled by the mules to the
lower works.

Near this plateau is a primitive kind of
village, the abode of the miners, sorters, and
ore-carriers, who are principally Mexicans; dirty
senoritas in ragged finery, dirtier children guiltless
of garments, together with dogs, pigs,
poultry, and idlers playing monte on the doorsteps,
contrasts sadly with the exquisite little
village at the works.

Descending from the mine to the hacienda
by a short track down the hill-side, through
scenery indescribably picturesque, we reach the
smelting furnaces; these occupy about four
acres of land, built of brick, admirably neat and
well contrived. As quicksilver is found in
several forms—namely, native quicksilver, in small
drops, in the pores or on the ledges of other
rocks, as argental mercury, a native silver
amalgam, and sulphide of mercury or cinnabar
—different processes are requisite for its
reduction. Here it is found solely in form of
cinnabar, and for its reduction a kind of
reverberatory furnace is used, three feet by five, placed
at the end of a series of chambers, each chamber
seven feet long, four wide, and five high. About
ten of these chambers are arranged in a line,
built of brick, plastered inside, and secured by
transverse rods of iron, fitted at the ends with
screws and nuts to allow for expansion. The
top is of boiler iron, securely luted.

The first chamber is the furnace for the fire,
the second for ore, separated from the first by
a grated partition, allowing the flame to pass
through and play over the ore. This ore chamber,
when filled, contains ten thousand pounds of
cinnabar. The remaining chambers are for condensing
the metal, communicating by square holes
at the opposite corners—for instance—the right
upper corner and lower left, and vice versâ, so
that the vapour has to perform a spiral course in
its transit through the condensers. Leaving the
chambers, the vapour is conducted through a
large wooden cistern, into which a shower of
water continually falls, and thence through a
long flue and tall chimney carried far away up the
hill-side. The mercury is collected as condensed,
in gutters running into a long conduit outside
the building, from which it drops into an iron
pot sunk in the ground. As the pot fills, the
mercury is conveyed to a store tank that holds
twenty tons. So great is its density, that a
man sitting on a flat board floats about in the
tank on a lake of mercury without its flowing
over the edges of his raft. From this tank the
metal is ladled out, and poured into iron flasks
containing each seventy pounds (these flasks
are made in England and sent to New Almaden);
in this state it is shipped for the various markets.
Although every possible care has been
taken to prevent the mercurial fumes from
injuring the smelters, still a great deal of it
is necessarily inhaled, most injurious to health.
Clearing out the furnace is the most hurtful
process, the men employed working short spells,
and resting a day or two between. A furnace
charged with ore takes about eight days to
sublime and cool.

It is difficult to obtain a correct statement of
the absolute yield of this mine,—proprietors,
for many reasons, deeming it inexpedient to let
the world know the extent of their riches. If
we take the export of quicksilver from San
Francisco a few years back as averaging
one million three hundred and fifty thousand
pounds per annum, valued at six hundred and
eighty-three thousand one hundred and
eighty-nine dollars, all this, together with the large
amount consumed in California, was the sole
produce of the New Almaden mines. There are
fourteen furnaces arranged with passages ten feet
wide between them, the whole covered with a
roof sufficiently high to allow a current of air to
circulate freely.

Between the furnaces, and on all the open
spaces, were innumerable bricks, just as we see
them in a brick-yard to harden before baking. On
inquiring what these were made for, I discovered
that all the finer particles and dust cinnabar is
pounded, mixed with water, and made into
bricks; in this form the ore can be built into the
furnace, securing intervening spaces for the flame
and heat to act on, thus more perfect sublimation
is secured, and a great saving of metal effected.

There are blacksmiths' and carpenters' shops,
and a saw-mill, adjoining the furnaces.

Until recently all the ore was brought down
from the mine packed on the backs of mules, a
most costly system of transport as compared to
the one now in use. The vegetation only
suffers immediately round the chimney, and
even there not to any alarming degree. The
flue being of great length, carried at a moderate
slope up the hill, and terminating in a very tall
chimney, completely condenses all mercurial
and arsenical fumes. Before this flue and stack
were constructed, even the mules and cattle
grazing in the pastures died from the poisonous
effects of the mercurial vapour; and its deadly
action on vegetation was like that of the fabled
upas-tree. The workmen now, as a rule, enjoy
very good health, and are admirably cared for;
the village boasts a capital hotel, and stages
run daily to San José and San Francisco.

A spring of native soda-water bubbling up in
the centre of the village, carefully protected and
fitted like a drinking fountain, is said to work
wonders as a curative agent in all maladies
arising from the effects of mercury. This spring
is supposed to be under the especial care of a
"Saint Somebody," a lady, whose image, attired
in very dirty finery, figures in niches cut in
the rocks at the mine; no miner ever leaves