236 



MERCURY 



The following detailed account of the apparatus for smelting in California is given by 

 Mr. Buschenberger : A kind of reverberatory-furnace 3 feet by 5, is arranged at the 

 extremity of a series of chambers of nearly, if not exactly of the same dimensions : 

 namely 7 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 5 feet high. There are 8 or 10 of these chambers 

 in each series ; they are built of brick, plastered inside, and secured by iron rods, 

 armed at the end with screws and nuts as a protection against the expansion by heat. 

 The tops are of boiler-iron, luted with ashes and salt. The first chamber is for a 

 wood fire. The second is the ore-chamber, which is separated from the first by a net- 

 work partition of brick. The flame of the fire passes through the square holes of this 

 partition, and plays upon the ore in the ore-chambers, which, when fully charged, 

 contains 10,000 Ibs. of cinnabar ; next to the ore-chamber is the first condensing- 

 chamber, which communicates with it by a square hole at the right upper corner ; 

 and the communication of this first with the second condensing-chamber is by a 

 square hole at the left lower corner. An opening at the right upper corner of the 

 partition, between the second and third condensing-chambers, communicates with the 

 latter. The openings between the chambers are at the top, and to the right, and at 

 the bottom, and to the left alternately ; so that the vapours from the ore-chamber aro 

 forced to describe a spiral in their passage through the 8 condensers. The vapour 

 and smoke pass from the last condensing-chamber through a square wooden box, 

 8 or 10 feet long, in which there is a continuous shower of cold water, and finally 

 escape into the open air by tall wooden flues. The floor, or bottom, of each con- 

 densing-chamber is above 2 feet above the ground, and is arranged with gutters for 

 collecting the condensed mercury, and conveying it out into an open conduit along 

 which it flows into an iron receptacle, from which it is 'poured into the iron flasks 

 through a brush, to cleanse it of the scum of oxide formed on the surface oc 

 standing. 70 Ibs. weight are poured into each flask. There are 14 of these furnaces 

 and ranges of condensers, with passages of 8 or 10 feet in width between them. A 

 shed is constructed above the whole at a sufficient elevation to permit free circulation 

 of the air. 



According to Dumas, the following mines yield annually as follow : Almaden in 

 Spain, from 2,700,000 to 3,456,000 Ibs. avoirdupois; Idria, 648,000 to 1,080,000 Ibs. ; 

 Hungary and Transylvania, 75,600 to 97,200 Ibs.; Deux Points, 43,000 to 54,000 Ibs.; 

 Palatinate, 19,440 to 21,600 Ibs. ; Huancavelica, 324,000 Ibs. 



The Imports of mercury for the years 1868-72 have been as follow: 



