The electrolyzed liquid contains 40 per
cent. ammonium sulphate.
* * * * *
THE TREATMENT OF QUICKSILVER ORES IN SPAIN.
Though known from remote times, the date of the first opening of the
famous mines of quicksilver of Almaden has not been precisely
determined. Almost all the writers on the subject agree that cinnabar,
from Spain, was already known in the times of Theophrastus, three
hundred years before the Christian era, although there is evidence in
the writings of Vitruvius that they were worked at a still earlier
date, Spanish ore being sent to Rome for the manufacture of vermilion.
Such ore constituted a part of the tribute which Spain paid to Rome
emperors, and there are records of its receipt until the first century
after Christ. The history of Almaden during the reign of the Moors is
so much involved in doubt that some writers deny altogether that the
Arabs worked the deposit; still the very name it now bears, which
means "the mine," and many of the technical terms still in use, give
evidence that they knew and worked that famous deposit. As for their
Christian conquerors, there are stray indications that they extracted
mercury during the twelfth and thirteen centuries. In 1417, Almaden
was given the privileges of a city, and from 1525 to 1645 the working
of mines was contracted for by the wealthy family of Fugger, of
Augsburg, Germany.
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