70 HISTORY or 



to the windy side, or laid over the mouth of the 

 hole, the miners below presently want breath, and 

 faint; and if sweet-smelling flowers chance to 

 be placed there, they immediately lose their fra- 

 grancy, and stink like carrion." An air so pu- 

 trefying can never be very commodious for respi- 

 ration. 



Indeed, if we examine the complexion of most 

 miners, we shall be very well able to form a judg- 

 ment of the unwholesomeness of the place where 

 they are confined. Their pale and sallow looks 

 shew how much the air is damaged by passing 

 through those deep and winding ways, that are 

 rendered humid by damps, or warmed with 

 noxious exhalations. But although every mine 

 is unwholesome, all are not equally so. Coal- 

 mines are generally less noxious than those of 

 tin ; tin than those of copper ; but of all, none are 

 so dreadfully destructive as those of quicksilver. 

 At the mines near the village of Idra, nothing 

 can adequately describe the deplorable infirmi- 

 ties of such as fill the hospital there : emaciated 

 and crippled, every limb contracted or convulsed, 

 and some in a manner transpiring quicksilver at 

 every pore. There was one man, says Dr Pope, * 

 who was not in the mines above half a year, and 

 yet whose body was so impregnated with this mi- 

 neral, that putting a piece of brass money in his 

 mouth, or rubbing it between his fingers, it im- 

 mediately became as white a&if it had been wash- 

 ed over with quicksilver. In this manner all the 



'^Thil. Trans, vol. ii. p. 578. 



