then the other } of no plain superficies ,but full of little cavf 
ties. The ftone,whcn brokcn 3 isfull of fmall.peble ftones of an 
Ovall figure » its colour is gray like free-ftone, but inteimixt 
with veins of yellow and black. A part of it I have begg’d 
of Dr .Haughten for you , which! have Cent to Oxford , whi- 
ther a more exact account will be conveyed by the fame 
ExtraB of a Letter , lately written from Venice by the 
Learned DoBor Walter Pope, to the Reverend Dean of 
Rippon, DoBor John Wilkins , concerning the Mines 
of Mercury in Friuli and a way of producing Wind, 
by the fall of W ater . 
The Mines of Mercury in f ruit i , a Territory belonging to 
•the Venetians , are about a days Journey and a half diftant: 
from Goriiu Northwards, at a place call d Idria ■, fitnated in 
a Valley of the 'Julian Alps* T hey have been, as 1 am inrotm o, 
thefe VBo. years in the pofleflion of the Emperor, and all the 
inhabitants ipeak the Sclavonics Tongue. In going tbit nci 3 
we traveled feveral hours in the- beft Wood I ever- faw be- 
fore or fincCj being very full of. firrs ■, Okps^ and Beet net , o» 
an extraordinary thicknefs , ftraitnMs , arid height.^ The 
Town is built 5 as ufually Towns in the .Alps are, all oi wood, 
the Church onely excepted, and another Houfe wherein the 
Overfeer liveth. When*! was there , in Augujl laft 5 the Val- 
ley, and the Mountains too, out of which the Mercury was- 
dugg 3 were of as plea fant a verdure , as if it had been in the 
mid ft of Spring , which they there attribute to the moiftnefi 
of the Mercury } how truly, ! difpute not. That Mine, which 
we went into, the beft and greateft of them all , was dedica- 
ted to Saint Barbara 5 as the other Mines are to other Saints *• 
the depth of it was 125. paces, every pace of that Country 
being , as they inform’d us , more then 5 of our Feet. There 
are two ways* down to it } the fhorteft perpendicular way is 
that, whereby they bring up the Mineral in great Buckets, and 
