[1] The reduction of silver ore by amalgamation with mercury was discovered (although mercury had been used long before for obtaining gold) by a Spanish miner in Mexico, Bartholomé de Medina, in 1557. From that time, enormous quantities of mercury have been continually required for the mining operations in the silver-producing districts of Spanish America. Efforts were occasionally made by the Mexican viceroys to procure it in China; but “the Chinese mercury obtained from Canton and Manilla was impure, and contained a great deal of lead; and its price [1782] amounted to 80 piastres the quintal.” See Humboldt’s account, descriptive and historical, of this use of mercury, in his New Spain (Black’s trans.), iii, pp. 250–288.
In this connection, see the interesting statement by Santiago de Vera (Vol. VI, p. 68) that as early as 1585 the Japanese (who then had but little communication with the Spaniards) were using Chinese quicksilver in the silver mines of Japan. Some of the Chinese mercury had been brought to Manila in 1573 (Vol. III, p. 245), and Sande mentions (Vol. IV. p. 54) the mines of silver and quicksilver in China.
Documents of 1616
- [Recommendations regarding the archbishopric of Manila]. [Council of the Indias?]; 1613–16.
- [Letter to Felipe III]. Valerio de Ledesma, S.J.; August 20.
- [Portuguese and Spanish expedition against the Dutch, 1615]. Juan de Rivera and Valerio de Ledesma, S.J.; [1616?].
Sources: The first document is obtained from the original MS. in the Archivo general de Indias, Sevilla. The second, and the first part of the third, are found in the Ventura del Arco MSS. (Ayer library), i, pp. 403–429; the remainder of the third, in Colin’s Labor evangélica (Madrid, 1663,) pp. 802–810.
Translations: The first document is translated by Robert W. Haight; the remainder, by James A. Robertson.