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 the hill, which drooped off to the north.  We rode along this hill, and saw where many openings had been begun, but these, proving of little or no value, had been abandoned.  Three miles beyond, on the west face of the bill, we came to the opening of the “Larkin Company.”  There was evidence of a good deal of work, but the mine itself was filled up by what seemed a land-slide.  The question involved in the lawsuit before the alcalde at San Jose was, first, whether the mine was or was not on the land belonging to the New Almaden property; and, next, whether the company had complied with all the conditions of the mite laws of Mexico, which were construed to be still in force in California.