HISTORY OF THE NEW ALMADEN MINES 



183 



found, and this led into the great flat Santa Rita ore 

 body, which was discovered in August 1865 and fur- 

 nished the bulk of the ore mined for the next 5 years. 

 (See figs. 81, 108.) Exploration south of the previ- 

 ously known ore bodies disclosed some small, but com- 

 paratively rich, ore bodies in the vicinity of the San 

 Francisco shaft, and exploration to the east found 

 some ore in the Cora Blanca mine. (See fig. 109.) 



At this time the ore was being treated in 6 fur- 

 naces, which had a combined capacity of nearly 300 

 tons and were intermittently charged from 4 to 6 

 times a month. The ore treated was of three kinds, 

 termed "gruesso" (purest cinnabar), "granza" (low- 

 grade chunks), and "tierras" (small pieces and loose 

 fines) . As the tierras would clog the furnaces if fed 

 directly, they were first mixed with water and formed 

 into mudballs or "adobes," which were dried in the 

 sun before they were roasted. The furnaces were 

 charged with a complex stack of all three kinds of ore, 

 arranged with the richest ore near the center and base 

 of the pile, and when they were in full operation the 

 quicksilver is said to have flowed from the condensers 

 in a steady stream a little smaller in diameter than a 

 pencil. 



About 2,000 men, most of whom were Mexicans who 

 lived with their families on Mine Hill, were employed 

 by the Quicksilver Mining Co. in 1865. The mining 

 was done largely by contract, and the daily wage 

 averaged about $2.50, which was then regarded as gen- 

 erous. The high wages encouraged liberal spending, 

 and the camp was notorious for its payday celebra- 

 tions and lawlessness. 



In spite of the lack of order in the camp and a 

 considerable loss of quicksilver by theft under the 



FIGURE 108. Tramming large pieces of rich ore through the Main Tun- 

 nel in the 1860's. Engineer Sherman Day on right, son of Jeremiah 

 Day, president of Yale University, was surveyor under Barren, Forbes, 

 & Co. and later superintendent for the Quicksilver Mining Co. 



several general managers who directed the mining be- 

 tween 1864 and 1870, the mine was yielding so much 

 quicksilver that it not only supplied all demands in 

 the United States but also shipped thousands of flasks 

 to China, Mexico, and South America. Yet the mine 

 was apparently being rapidly exhausted, for by 1870 

 production had dropped to one-third of what it had 

 been in 1865; the great Santa Rita ore bodies were 

 nearly mined out, and the grade of the ore furnaced 

 had reached the unprecedentedly low level of about 5 

 percent quicksilver. (See fig. 110.) 



In the summer of 1870 J. B. Randol, the secretary 

 of the Quicksilver Mining Co., was sent from New 

 York to the mine as its new general manager. Dur- 

 his first year he was content to let his mining cap- 

 tains direct the underground operations while he 

 merely observed. These mining captains were men 

 thoroughly familiar with the mine, and carried on 

 the old practice of obtaining ore from the nearly ex- 

 hausted Velasco workings and from the Victoria and 

 Oregon stopes found to the northwest of the Santa 

 Rita ore body. From the first, however, Randol set 

 about to change the surface camp from a notoriously 

 lawless and dirty one to a clean, orderly community. 

 He adopted the autocratic method of posting edicts in 

 both English and Spanish on a great many bulletin 

 boards throughout the camp, and then saw to it that 

 the edicts were carried out. The first one must have 

 been a real shock to the camp, for it decreed that 

 every able-bodied man living on the property must be 

 working in some capacity for the mining company. 

 How Randol's edicts were enforced is well illustrated 

 by the story told of a gambler who refused to leave 

 because he owned his house though he did not own 

 the ground on which it stood. The gambler was noti- 

 fied of the time when he must move out, and when he 

 still remained after the time limit, the camp constable 

 and a crew of carpenters seized his house, sawed it into 

 pieces, loaded it into wagons, and transported it sev- 

 eral miles to a place outside the company property, 

 where it was unloaded and reassembled. 



An English camp, largely populated by Cornish 

 miners trained in the Almaden mine in Spain, had 

 grown up around the company store on Mine Hill. 

 (See fig. 111.) Apparently there was little, if any, 

 friction between the Mexicans and English. Each 

 group recognized the other's special abilities; the 

 Cornish miners were experts ' on sinking shafts and 

 running long straight drifts, whereas the Mexican 

 miners excelled in following and mining the ore. Ran- 

 dol treated all alike, requiring all to obey the same 

 rules and inviting everyone to an annual open house 

 at his palatial home, "Casa Grande," in the mouth of 



