216 MULE-HUNTING EXPEDITION. 



are for condensing the metal, communicating by 

 square holes at the opposite corners ; for instance, 

 the right upper corner and lower left, and vice 

 versa, 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 lan>;e wooden cistern, into which a 



o o 



shower of water continually falls, and thence 

 through a long flue and tall chimney carried far 

 away up the hillside. 



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 earth. 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 Eng- 

 land, 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 



