6 QUICKSILVEIi DEPOSITS OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE. 



This table serves to show how the quicksilver mining industry has 

 been transferred from Vallalta to Tuscany. The sura of the products here 

 given for five years is 15,087 flasks, Spanish standard, or an average of 

 2,017 flasks a year. From 1850 to 18G0 the average was probaldy con- 

 siderably lower. Since 1880 it has been greater.' 



The ore deposits of Huancavelica, in Pern, were discovered soon after 

 the invention of tJie amalgamation process. There are over forty deposits 

 in the district, but tlie principal mine was the Santa Barbara. This mine 

 was sometimes worked b}' the state and was sometimes leased to private 

 parties on conditioii tliat the metal obtained should be made over to the 

 state at a fixed price. Stealing, however, was prevalent to such an extent 

 that mercliants flocked to Huancavelica with no inconsiderable sums of 

 money to l)uy from miners and foremen the metal which it was their duty 

 to turn into the treasury. The technical management seems to have been 

 as bad as the business administration of this property, and there can be 

 little doubt tliat skillful and honest Avork would have secured a far larger 

 total output. With all disadvantages, the Santa Barbara mine alone yielded 

 to the state about as much quicksilver as has thus far been produced in 

 California. 



Of the mines of Kwei-Chau, in China, very little is known. Baron von 

 Richthofen, however, a most excellent judge, believed this district to be 

 the richest quicksilver region in the world. 



Table of products — -J liavc tliouglit it wortli whilo to bring the figures repre- 

 senting the known production of the more important quicksilver regions 

 together for comparison in the following table. The figures for Almaden 

 are taken from a memoir by Mr. II. Kuss^ and data furnished by Mr. J. B. 

 Randol.^ In Mr. Kuss's table of product for 1800 to 1875, there is a misprint 

 amounting to 1,000,000 kilograms. Mr. Randol's data prove that the total 

 for this period given by Mr. Kuss is correct and that the misprint is between 

 1800 and 1850. The product of Almaden for 1 885 was 47,02G flasks. The 



• According to data furnished to mo by the superintendents of the Siele and the Cornachino mines 

 (the only ones at work, so far as I can ascertain, in Tuscany), the average product for the five years 

 1881 to 1885 was 5,789 flasks. The product for 1880 was 7,478 flasks. 



^Annalesdes mines, vol. 13, 1878, p. 1.50. 



s Mineral Resources U. S. 1833 and 1884, p. 492. 



