﻿QUICKSILVER MINES. 



Quicksilver, or Mercury. 



Go into a druggist's shop and ask the proprietor to show you some 

 quicksilver. He will probably take down a small bottle containing 

 a shining fluid, very closely resembling melted lead. If you take 

 the bottle into your hands you will be astonished at its great weight, 

 and for some moments you will be almost certain that there are some 

 heavy weights attached to it. If you pour out a small quantity into 

 your hand, it will roll about in all directions, but will assume nearly 

 the shape of a ball, unless scattered by violence. You cannot pick 

 it up, for it will evade your grasp entirely. It will not stick to your 

 fingers, but as soon as they are removed it will fall together again 

 into one mass. This is what mineralogists call MERCURY. 



Mercury is of great use in extracting other metals from their ores. 

 It has a great attraction for gold, and still greater for silver; and 

 without the aid of this mineral, it would not be easy to obtain those 

 more precious commodities. The silver-mines of Potosi would have 

 been almost useless, had not a mine of quicksilver been discovered 

 at Guanza Velica, in the same country. This mine has been worked 

 almost three hundred years, and does not seem to diminish in its 

 productiveness. 



When a visitor gets fairly into the mine, he finds a subterraneous 

 city, with broad streets, open squares, and a chapel, in which the 

 ceremonies of the Romish religion are performed, especially upon 

 high days. Thousands of flambeaux are kept continually burning, 

 to give light to these otherwise gloomy regions, into which the sun 

 has never darted a ray. 



The ore in which the quicksilver is contained is earthy, of a 

 whitish red color, looking like burned brick. This is pounded small. 

 It is then put into a kiln, somewhat, in shape, like an oven: the 

 bottom consists of an iron grating, covered with earth. Under this 

 a gentle heat is kept up, with an herb which grows in that part of 

 the country; and, from its being deemed the most suitable fuel for 

 this business, the cutting of it for other purposes is prohibited, for 

 sixty miles around. The heat thus communicated to the pounded 

 ore sublimes the mercury, that is, makes it rise with the smoke, 

 which can only pass off through a very small hole, connected with a 



