40S PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l66g. 



mine. The ore of this mine is of a dark colour, mixed with red. But the 

 best is a hard stone; which they commit not presently to the operation of the 

 fire, but powder it grossly, and work it by the sieve ; that so if any virgin 

 quicksilver be found in it, it may be separated in this manner, and what doth 

 not pass the sieve, may be separated by fire in iron furnaces : fifty of them in 

 a fire. The quicksilver ore of this mine is the richest of all ores I have yet 

 seen ; for ordinarily it contains in it half quicksilver, or in two parts of ore, 

 one part of quicksilver, and sometimes in three parts of ore, two parts of 

 quicksilver. 



I went into the mine by the pit of St. Agatha, and came up again by that 

 of St. Barbara, descending and ascending by ladders. I ascended at one of 

 639 staves, or 89 fathoms. This mine, I was informed, has been wrought 200 

 years, about the same space of time with Newsol mine, but comes much short 

 in time of the silver mine at Schemnitz ; and much shorter yet of the notable 

 lead mines in Upper Carinthia. Some hundreds of men are employed about 

 this mine of Idria ; of which the chief officers are the prefect, the comptroller 

 and the judge. I heard no complaint of the damps of this mine, as I have 

 heard of divers others ; yet the workmen are sufficiently injured without them : 

 for, though they be not suddenly suffocated, yet the mercury getting into their 

 bodies, they are languishingly destroyed by it. 



In a laboratory where the quicksilver is separated by fire, I saw a heap of 

 16,000 retorts of iron ; every one of which costs a crown at the best hand from 

 the iron furnaces in Carinthia. There are 800 retorts, and as many recipients, 

 employed together in drawing over the Quicksilver in 16 furnaces ; 50 in each 

 furnace, 25 of a side, 12 above, and 13 below, on each side. June 12, when 

 I was there, they carried out 40 saumes of quicksilver into foreign parts, each 

 saume containing 315 pound weight, to the value of 400 ducats of gold. 

 Though the conveyance be not easy, yet some is sent as far as Cremnitz in 

 Hungary, for the use of the gold mines ; and very much carried away south- 

 ward. In the castle I saw 3000 saumes of quicksilver together in barrels ; the 

 quicksilver being first made up in double leather : and in another house as 

 much rich ore as can be distilled in two years, except they have great plenty of 

 rain to bring down the wood ; but, the hills being high about them, it snows 

 at the tops of them oftener than it rains. 



The countries through which I passed are singularly well wooded, and well 

 stored with fair trees, wherein, beside such as grow with us in England, are 

 stately firs, larches, pines, pinasters, piceas, and that nobly crisped and well 

 grained kind of acer, whereof viols and violins are made : of which there is also 

 plenty in the country of Saltzburg and Carinthia. The way to this place I 



