several smaller rivers, among which are those of Sullumarca, Quinua, &c. There are, besides, a variety of lakes, formed by the rains, which, as well as the rivers above cited, are highly conducive to the Operations of the miners. It ought, however, to be remarked, that the lakes have greatly contributed to the inundation of the mines.
ACCOUNT OF THE
QUICKSILVER MINE OF HUANCAVELICA.
Until about the middle of the sixteenth century, the method of refining silver by the means of amalgamation, or by the incorporation of mercury with the particles of that metal contained in the pulverized ores, was not perfectly known. The usual mode of refining was anteriorly reduced to a fusion effected by means more or less complicated, or to the trituration of the ores, and the deposition of the metallic particles in hydrostatic machines. Pedro Fernandez Velasco was the first to employ mercury in the refining of silver, in the year 1571; and to this respectable Spaniard America is indebted for the progress which, in pursuance of the track he struck out, has been since made in the science of mineralogy.
The mine of Huancavelica was discovered about the year 1566. It is of little import whether this discovery originated in a lump of crystallized cinnabar, accidentally found by Enrique Garces, a Portuguese, in the hand of an Indian; or whether a portion of that substance fell, by a fortunate
