t for San Francisco, where he arrived while
Colonel Mason and I were there on some business connected with the
customs. Ricord at once made a dead set at Mason with flattery, and
all sorts of spurious arguments, to convince him that our military
government was too simple in its forms for the new state of facts,
and that he was the man to remodel it. I had heard a good deal to
his prejudice, and did all I could to prevent Mason taking him, into
his confidence. We then started back for Monterey. Ricord was
along, and night and day he was harping on his scheme; but he
disgusted Colonel Mason with his flattery, and, on reaching
Monterey, he opened what he called a law-office, but there were
neither courts nor clients, so necessity forced him to turn his
thoughts to something else, and quicksilver became his hobby. In
the spring of 1848 an appeal came to our office from San Jose, which
compelled the Governor to go up in person. Lieutenant Loeser and I,
with a couple of soldiers, went along. At San Jose the Governor
held some kind of a court, in which Ricord and the alcalde had a
warm dispute about a certain mine which Ricord, as a member of the
Larkin Company, had opened within the limits claimed by the New
Almaden Company. On our way up we had visited the ground, and were
therefore better prepared to understand the controversy. We had
found at New Almaden Mr. Walkinshaw, a fine Scotch gentleman, the
resident agent of Mr. Forbes. He had built in the valley, near a
small stream, a few board-houses, and some four or five furnaces for
the distillation of the mercury. These were very simple in their
structure, being composed of whalers' kettles, set in masonry.
These kettles were filled with broken ore about the size of
McAdam-stone, mingled with lime. Another kettle, reversed, formed
the lid, and the seam was luted with clay. On applying heat, the
mercury was volatilized and carried into a chimney-stack, where it
condensed and flowed back into a reservoir, and then was led in
pipes into another kettle outside. After witnessing this process,
we visited the mine itself, which outcropped near the apex of the
hill, about a thousand feet above the furnaces. We found wagons
hauling the mineral down the hill and returning empty, and in the
mines quite a number of Sonora miners were blasting and driving for
the beautiful ore (cinnabar). It was then, and is now, a most
valuable mine. The adit of the mine was at the apex of