Re: (TFT) Hirst Arts Melee/Wizard Arena

[Sgt Hulka <hulkasgt@yahoo.com>]

Do you mean mercury?

At the time of the Spanish Empire, mercury was used in the processing of silver ore. I'd be lying to you if I said knew the exact technology -- that wasn't important for my studies. What was important was that that was the only technology available at the time. And the math of the process was very precise. X amount of mercury was required to yield Y amount of silver.

You've probably heard of "La quinta", or 20%, which was the amount of silver extracted that automatically belonged to the Spanish Crown. Well, how did the Spanish Crown even know how much belonged to them? Wouldn't it be easy to forge records and/or falsely report mining to a bureaucracy that was an ocean away? Why wouldn't you just mine what you wanted, report a lot less, and hold on to that 20% for yourself?

Well, the way the Spanish Crown kept tabs on that was by monopolizing mercury. You could not get mercury from anyone *except* the Spanish crown. And they kept meticulous records of it. So if they sold you "X" mercury they knew you were producing "Y" silver, and they knew you owed them 20% of "Y". If you tried to smuggle that silver down the Rio de La Plata from Peru, you were stuffed, because the Empire's agents would come a-calling asking where the heck that silver you owed them was.

Now, I'm not sure how the Spanish Empire was *able* to monopolize mercury. Government monopolies throughout history generally don't seem to have worked very well, but this one seems to have been an exception. I'm not sure why the English and Dutch couldn't have smuggled in mercury. Probably *someone* did -- after all the Rio de La Plata was called the River of Silver for a reason -- and the only way to smuggle silver down it would have been to start with smuggled mercury. 

Maybe the Spanish Crown sold its mercury at cost or even for a loss? That's pure speculation on my part -- I have no idea if it's true. But it would explain why it was able to maintain it's monopoly. And the purpose of the mercury monopoly in the first place wasn't to make money off of it -- not directly, at least. The real purpose was to keep tabs on silver production.

Here's an online article that touches on the subject, but seems to look at it more from as environmental problem than a historical explanation:

http://corrosion-doctors.org/Elements-Toxic/Mercury-amalgamation.htm

That article implies that the major mercury mines were all in Spanish-controlled territory, which would further explain why Spain was able to maintain its monopoly. 

--- On Sun, 2/22/09, maou_tsaou1@netzero.net <maou_tsaou1@netzero.net> wrote:

> From: maou_tsaou1@netzero.net <maou_tsaou1@netzero.net>
> Subject: Re: (TFT) Hirst Arts Melee/Wizard Arena
> To: tft@brainiac.com
> Date: Sunday, February 22, 2009, 12:49 AM
> HEY Sarge!
> 
> Tell me more about the Meurcy and the Spanish please?
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