Scarcely any animals live in the mines of Idria. Even spiders cannot long resist the noxious atmosphere. Rats, however, formerly existed there in considerable numbers, but have almost entirely disappeared since the last fire, which proved too much even for them. In some parts of the mine the mercury is inclosed in the clay-slate in extremely fine globules, so as scarcely to be visible to the naked eye; but on removing the ore many of them fall out and collect on the floor, in larger drops or small pools, which are carefully gathered in leather pouches or bags. By far the greatest part of the mercury of Idria, however, is combined with sulphur, and is obtained by distilling the ore in vast furnaces. It may easily be imagined that the carriage of a liquid body of the weight of mercury requires the greatest care. The old mode of packing, still partly in use, is in sheep-skins, which can acquire the necessary firmness only by being tanned with alum, and are attentively examined before being used. After having been filled, the sack is first tried on a wooden table, and, having successfully stood the ordeal of severe pressing and punching, is enclosed in a second skin. Two of these packages, each containing forty-one pounds and a few ounces, are then placed in a small cask, and three of these in a square box. But as, in spite of all these precautions, the sacks will sometimes burst, the mercury is now frequently transported in large iron bottles, the stoppers of which are firmly screwed down by means of a machine invented for the purpose. All the quicksilver packed up in this manner is sent to Trieste, and thence chiefly to England, while that which is destined for Vienna and Germany is exported in sacks. In the years 1856, 1857, and 1858, 4,570, 7,178, and 4,331 hundredweight of mercury were produced in Idria, and sold at an average price of one hundred florins. In 1850 mercury was worth two hundred and fifty florins the hundredweight, and thus we see how detrimental the competition of California has been to the Austrian treasury, which, in its chronic state of atrophy, is little able to bear any diminution of revenue. A great part of the produce of the mines—about 1,000 hundredweight—is manufactured into cinnabar in Idria, which supplies almost all Europe with this splendid red colouring matter. All the other European quicksilver veins, in Tyrol, Bohemia, Hungary, and the Bavarian Palatinate, are utterly insignificant when compared with Almaden and Idria, as none of them produce more than a few hundredweight.