The mines of Idria, in Austria, are about thirty-two miles northeast of Trieste. The town is a small one, its population being less than five thousand. Its annual production is about three hundred thousand pounds. A single shaft has been sunk to a depth of about one thousand feet. The excavations are made through horizontal galleries extended from this shaft. The descent into the mine is accomplished partly by steps cut in the rock and partly by ladders. About five hundred miners are employed. They preserved a peculiarity by wearing a uniform of their own, and, though the occupation is unhealthy, the appointment of a miner at Idria is greatly sought. The mines have been worked about four hundred years, and are the property of the government. The product of the other smaller mines of this metal throughout Europe is so inconsiderable as to have no material effect on the market. The same may be said of the quicksilver mines of China, Japan, and Australia.
The Peruvian quicksilver mines have been worked since the beginning of the sixteenth century. At the great mines of Huanca Velica the ores are found in sandstone and shales along a belt of ground or rock about four hundred feet thick. Most of the excavations are open ones, and appear as if laid out without much plan or method. Accidents frequently occur, and at one time two hundred workmen were buried by the caving in of the earth. The total annual yield of the Peruvian mines is about four hundred thousand pounds.
Mercury is found in many places in Mexico, but no mines of it are now worked, the deposits not being sufficient to pay for the exploitation. The quicksilver mines of California were first opened and worked in 1845, by one of the Spanish settlers. It was known that for a long time the Indians had made use of cinnabar to ornament their faces, and it was found that they had made pits fifty or sixty feet deep into the mountain in search of it. The first attempt made by the Spaniards in these Indian mines was to work the cinnabar ore for silver; but no silver could be found. The war of 1846 stopped the working of the mine, and nothing was done after that until 1848, when operations were recommenced on a large scale. A company of Mexicans and English worked the mines from 1850 to 1858, when they were stopped by the United States court on account of a lawsuit about the title.
QUICKSILVER MINES OF NEW ALMADEN.
BLASTING IN THE QUICKSILVER MINES.
NEW ALMADEN IN CALIFORNIA.