NOTES  ON  THE  NEW  ALMADEN  QUICKSILVER  MINES.  519 
vide  the  masses  of  cinnabar.  Sometimes  narrow  threads  of 
these  minerals,  accompanied  by  a  minute  coloration  of  cinna- 
bar, serve  as  the  only  guide  to  the  miner  in  re-discovering  the 
metal  when  it  has  been  lost  in  a  former  working. 
Veins  or  plates  of  white  massive  magnesian  rock  and  sheets 
of  yellow  ochre  also  accompany  the  metal.  Iron  pyrites  is 
rarely  found,  and  no  mispickel  was  detected  in  any  portion  of 
the  mine;  running  mercury  is  also  rarely,  almost  never,  seen. 
The  cinnabar  occurs  chiefly  in  two  forms,  a  massive  and  a 
subcrystalline.  The  first  is  fine  granular,  or  pulverulent,  soft, 
and  easily  reduced  to  the  condition  of  vermillion  ;  the  other  is 
hard,  more  distinctly  crystalline,  compact  and  difficult  to  break  ; 
but  in  neither  of  these  forms  does  it  show  any  tendency  to  de- 
velop well  formed  crystals.  It  is  occasionally  seen  veining 
the  substance  of  greenish  white  or  brown  compact  steatite  or 
serpentine. 
The  ores  are  extracted  by  contract,  the  miners  receiving  a 
price  dependent  upon  the  greater  or  less  facility  with  which 
the  ore  can  be  broken.  By  far  the  larger  portion  of  the  work 
people  in  the  mines  are  Mexicans,  who  are  found  to  be  more 
adventurous  than  Cornishmen,  and  willing  oftentimes  to  un- 
dertake jobs  which  the  latter  have  abandoned.  The  price  paid 
for  the  harder  ores  in  the  poorer  portions  of  the  mine  is  from 
$3  to  $5  per  cargo  of  300  lbs.  This  weight  is  obtained  after 
the  ore  is  brought  to  the  surface  and  freed  by  hand-breaking 
from  the  superfluous  or  unproductive  rock ;  by  this  arrange- 
ment, the  company  are  secured  from  paying  for  anything  but 
productice  mineral.  All  the  small  stuff  and  dirt  formed  by  the 
working  of  the  "labors,"  are  also  sent  to  the  surface  to  form 
the  adobes  used  in  charging  the  furnaces. 
It  has  often  happened  in  the  history  of  this  mine,  during 
the  past  fifteen  years,  that  the  mine  for  a  time  has  appeared 
to  be  completely  exhausted  of  ore.  Such  a  condition  of  things 
has,  however,  always  proved  to  be  but  temporary,  and  may  al- 
ways be  avoided  by  well  directed  and  energetic  exploration. 
Upon  projecting,  by  a  careful  survey,  irregular  and  apparently 
disconnected  chambers  of  the  mine  in  its  former  workings  in  a 
section,  there  is  easily  seen  to  be  a  general  conformity  in  the 
line  of  direction  and  mode  of  occurrence  of  the  productive  ore- 
