544 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, I02 



and is built at its foot. To the E., and opposite the mercury range, 

 there is another high range with very rich silver mines, v^ith another 

 [range] to the E. with rich tin mines, and to the W., others with 

 copper ; these are all in an area of half a league. 



Chapter LXX [67] (7 ) 



Of the Manner of Handling and Treating the Mercury Ore. 



1473. This is how they extract the mercury. On the other side 

 of the town there are structures where they grind up the mercury 

 ore and then put it in jars with molds like sugar loaves on top of 

 them, with many little holes, and others on top of them, flaring and 

 plastered with mud, and a channel for it to drip into and pass into 

 the jar or place where it is to fall. Then they roast the ore with a 

 straw fire from the plant growing on the puna, like esparto grass, 

 which they call ichu ; that is the best sort of fire for the treatment 

 of this ore. Under the onset of this fire it melts and the mercury 

 goes up in vapor or exhalation until, passing through the holes in 

 the first mold, it hits the body of the second, and there it coagulates, 

 rests, and comes to stop where they have provided lodging for it ; 

 [but] if it does not strike any solid body while it is hot, it rises as 

 vapor until it cools and coagulates and starts falling downward again. 

 Those who carry out the reduction of this ore have to be very careful 

 and test cautiously ; they must wait till the jars are cold before 

 uncovering them for otherwise they may easily get mercury poisoning 

 and if they do, they are of no further use ; their teeth fall out, and 

 some die. After melting and extracting the mercury by fire, they 

 put it in dressed sheepskins to keep it in His Majesty's storehouses, 

 and from there they usually transport it on llamaback to the port 

 of Chincha (which is 5 leagues N. of Pisco), where there is a vault 

 and a Factor appointed by the Royal Council, and he has charge of 

 it there ; then they freight it on shipboard to the port of San Marcos 

 de Arica, from which it is carried by herds of llamas and mules to 

 Potosi. In the treatment of the silver they use up every year more 

 than 6,000 quintals, plus 2,000 more derived from the ore dust, i.e., 

 the silver and mercury which was lost and escaped from the first 

 washing of the ore, made in vats. 



The way they handle this is as follows : every year they burn over 

 300,000 quintals of this ore dust in ovens, which are made in Tarapaya 

 and other places ; out of it they get a large amount of very high- 

 grade silver together with the mercury referred to ; and since when 

 I deal with the district of the Archdiocese of the Charcas, I shall 



