Quicksilver Renaissance

A most sinister and most beneficent metal is quicksilver, whose properties mystified men for 4,000 years. A deadly poison in some forms, it was once mined chiefly by slaves, convicts, syphilitics. It is used in the making of felt hats, anti-barnacle marine paint, medications, many another product. Without its uniform sensitivity good thermometers would be costly and rare. Its hypersensitive crystals (mercury fulminate) have detonated most of the world's bombs.

Eighty-five percent of the world's productive veins of quicksilver ore (cinnabar) lie in Spain and Italy. The great Spanish mine of Almaden, worked at least since Hannibal's time, was a prime pawn in the late Spanish war. A European cartel, pioneered by the Rothschilds, controls the world price. No. 1 world consumer, the U. S. uses 25,000 to 35,000 flasks * a year, normally buys half its quicksilver from the cartel, produces nearly all the rest itself.

Western U. S. quicksilver mines were sizable producers in the last century. But they exhausted their best ore, and of 90 or so mines in the U. S. today, most are marginal producers, their rate of production highly responsive to the cartel's price. Newest U. S. mine in commercial production is the Idaho Almaden near Weiser, Idaho, discovered by a sheepherder in 1936, leased and run by Lawrence Kendall Requa, son of Herbert Hoover's late friend and booster, Mark Requa. Vice presidents of Idaho Almaden are Sons Allan and Herbert Hoover Jr. Producing around 500 Ib. of mercury a day, their mine has made money from its start.

Oldest U. S. mine is the New Almaden near Santa Clara, Calif. Opened nearly 100 years ago, New Almaden was a potent factor in California politics, had yielded more than 1,000,000 flasks worth $65-75,000,000 before it closed in 1926. Since then New Almaden has yielded a few small tonnages to short-term lessees, but most of its 100 miles of tunnels have been empty. Last week the great New Almaden was on the point of changing hands.

The reason is quicksilver's war price. Even in peacetime, 15% of world production goes into fulminate for explosives. Another war use: calomel for soldiers' bowels, ointments for their skins. Last summer, up from a 1932 low of $46 a flask, the price of quicksilver was idling between $83 and $91, just below the price most U. S. mines need for profitable production. When war broke out, it shot up to $147, by February had reached $185, has stayed near there since. Warring governments have clamped the lid on news of their needs and reserve supplies. Panicky U. S. consumers, none of whom is known to face an actual shortage, have helped to keep the price up. This price has stimulated old sleeping New Almaden itself.

A weary-looking, blueblooded Philadelphian, Fitz Eugene Newbold, partner in the 96-year-old house of W. H. Newbold's Son & Co., filed a registration statement with SEC three weeks ago, was preparing this week to sell $500,000 of stock to lease the mine from its owners, Philadelphians William and Mary Lord Sexton. Terms of the lease: $20,241 cash, at least $10,000 a year plus 10% of the gross. Trusting chiefly to the mine's great record, the Newbold syndicate has taken no new samples at New Almaden. It underlined the words "very speculative" on its SEC statement in true Philadelphia style. Stock will be sold mostly to relatives and friends. "We are not going to do any ballyhooing," said Fitz Eugene Newbold last week, as he planned to go West.

* Flasks are malleable iron containers of a traditional 76 pounds each: convenient weight for a slave's back.

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