62 THE QUICKSILVER MINES 
structed road of gradual and easy ascent, which the 
Company has been engaged in making for the last six 
months. It is a mile in length, and is now only used 
by mules; but it is intended to use carts and wagons 
on it. It winds the whole way along the side of the 
mountain, rising twenty-five feet in every hundred 
until you reach the mouth of the mine, at an elevation 
of a little less than one thousand feet above the com- 
mencement of the ascent. | 
About one hundred and fifty feet, in a direct line 
below the opening, they were digging a tunnel for the 
purpose of intersecting the main shaft. This tunnel, 
which is cut entirely through the solid rock, had 
already pierced the mountain seven or eight hundred 
feet, and will, when completed, be not much short of 
one thousand feet. It is about eight feet high, and 
between eight and ten feet wide. This will prove a 
vast saving in labor; for the ore up to the time of our 
visit was transported on the backs of men in leather 
sacks from the bottom of the shafts to the entrance to 
the mine, a distance of from two hundred and fifty to 
three hundred feet. It is not the cinnabar alone that 
has to be thus carried from the bottom of the mine, 
but the refuse rock, which forms a greater bulk than 
the ore itself. It cannot be separated in the mine, 
but has all to be brought to the surface. 
We waited for Mr. Bester, the engineer, to join us 
before entering the mine; and as he had not returned 
from San José, where we left him, we determined to 
forego the examination of its interior to-day, and con- 
tent ourselves with what we could see on the sur- 
face. 
