218 REFINING WITH QUICKSILVER . 



IV * colde, and then, congeled, it falles dowue again. When the 

 melting is finished, they vnstoppe the pottes and draw forth 

 the mettal, sometimes staying vntil it be very cold, for if 

 there remained any fume or vapor, which should incounter 

 them that vnstopt the pottes, they were in danger of death, 

 or to be benummed of their limbes, or at the least to loose 

 their teeth. And for that they spend an infinite quantitie 

 of wood in the melting of these mettals, a miller called 

 llodrigo de Torres, found out a profitable invention, which 

 was to gather certaine straw which growes throughout 

 all those mountaines of Peru, the which they call ycliu, 1 it is 

 like unto a hard reede wherewith they make their fire. It 

 is a strange thing to see the force which this straw hath to 

 melt and dissolve these mettalls, the which falls out, as 

 sxiii] 1 ?. -i. Pliuio saies, that there is gold which melts more easily with 

 the flame of straw then with hote burning coales. They 

 put the quicke-silver thus molten into skinues, for that it 

 keepes best in leather, and in this sort they lay it into the 

 Kings store house, from whence they carry it by sea to 

 Arica, and so to Potosi by land vpon their sheepe. There 

 is yeerely spent in Potosi for the refining of mettalles, 

 about six or seven thousand quintalles of qnicke-silver, 

 besides that they draw from the plates, which is the earth 

 or drosse of the first washings of these mettalls, which are 

 made in caldrons. The which plates they bnrne in their 

 furnaces to draw out the quicke-silver which remaines in 

 them, and there are above fiftie of these furnaces in 

 the Citie of Potosi, and in Tarapaya. The quantitie of 

 mettalls which they refine, as some men of experience 

 have made the account, doth amount yeerely to above 

 three hundred thousand quintalles ; from the earth and 

 drosse whereof being molt and refiued, they may draw 

 yeerely above two thousand quintalles of quicke-silver. 



1 YcJui (Stipa Ychu of Knotty is the coarse grass of the Peruvian 

 Cordilleras. 



