286 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
Besides it is said that new processes for reducing silver ore 
have been invented, far superior to all the old methods; and 
these processes are kept secret. It is therefore unnecessary 
that I should go into along description of the various pro- 
cesses practised elsewhere. Silver ore after pulverization is 
smelted by mixing with it fifty per cent. of lead in metal or 
ore, and ten per cent. of iron, and exposing the whole to a 
heat sufficient to melt the silver which runs off. The metal 
thus obtained is not pure but contains much lead, which is 
driven off by heat while the silver is kept in a molten condition 
for a period of four or six hours. The cost of smelting in 
California at present, is about one hundred and twenty-five 
dollars per ton. In most of the other methods of reducing 
silver ore, the ore is roasted to drive off the sulphur. In the 
barrel amalgamation, which has been used at Washoe, and will 
probably be used at Esmeralda also, half a ton of ore, after 
being pulverized and roasted, three hundred pounds of water, 
and one hundred pounds of wrought iron, in little fragments, 
are put into a barrel, which revolves on a perpendicular axis. 
At the end of two hours the mass has taken the consistence of 
thick cream, when five hundred pounds of quicksilver are put 
in, and after the barrel has revolved four hours more, the 
amalgamation is complete. More water is now poured in; 
the barrel revolves very slowly to let the amalgam all settle to 
the bottom, the mud runs off through a cock four inches above 
the bottom, and the mercury and amalgam are then drawn off 
through a little hole in the bottom of the barrel. 
§ 215. Quicksilver Mining—The ore from which quick- 
silver is obtained is a sulphuret. The sulphur is driven off by 
heat, and the metal, which rises in fumes from the ore, is col- 
lected by condensation. The miners are Cornishmen and 
Mexicans. The ore is in large masses underground, not in a 
connected vein of regular thickness ; and after one mass is ex- 
hausted, much labor is often vainly spent in search of another. 
There are, however, usually little seams of ore running from 
one large deposit to another, and it is the business of the 
