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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mines and its Wonders, by W.H.G. Kingston
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Mines and its Wonders
+
+Author: W.H.G. Kingston
+
+Release Date: January 28, 2009 [EBook #27918]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MINES AND ITS WONDERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
+
+
+
+
+The Mines and its Wonders, by W.H.G. Kingston.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+THE MINER'S DANGERS.
+
+A hum of human voices rose from a village in the centre of England, but
+they were those of women, girls, and children, the latter playing in the
+street, running, skipping, laughing, singing, and shouting in shrill
+tones, the former in their yards or in front of their dwellings,
+following such avocations as could be carried on out of doors on that
+warm summer evening.  Not a man or lad, not even a boy above eight years
+old, was to be seen.  On one side of the village far away could be
+distinguished green fields, picturesque hills, widespreading trees, and
+a sparkling stream flowing in their midst; on the other, nearer at hand,
+a dreary black region, the ground covered with calcined heaps, the roads
+composed of coal dust or ashes, and beyond, tall chimneys sending forth
+dense volumes of smoke, which, wreathing upwards, formed a dark canopy
+over the scene.  Then there were large uncouth buildings, above which
+huge beams appeared, lifting alternately their ends with ceaseless
+motion, now up, now down, engaged evidently in some Titanic operation,
+while all the time proceeding from that direction were heard groans, and
+shrieks, and whistlings, and wailings, and the sound of rushing water,
+and the rattling and rumbling of tram or railway waggons rushing at
+rapid speed across the country, some loaded with huge lumps of
+glittering coal, others returning to be refilled at the pit's mouth.
+Those high buildings contained the steam-engines which worked the
+machinery employed in the coal mine; the tall chimneys carried up the
+smoke from the furnaces and produced the current of air which kept them
+blazing.  The deafening noises came from cranks, pulleys, gins,
+whimsays, and other contrivances for lifting the coal from the bottom of
+the mine, pumping out the water, loading the waggons, ventilating the
+shafts and galleries, and for performing duties innumerable of various
+descriptions.  As the evening drew on, the women retired into their
+cottages to prepare supper for their husbands and sons, whose return
+home they were now expecting.  Already the corves which took them down
+to their work in the early morning must be on their way up to the
+surface, and it is time to have the savoury messes ready for dishing up.
+Abundance is on the board, for the miner's wages are sufficient to
+supply him with what would be luxuries to an ordinary labourer above
+ground; but were they far higher, could they repay him for a life of
+constant danger, of hard incessant toil, and the deprivation for more
+than half the year of a sight of the blue sky, the warming rays of the
+sun, and the pure air of heaven, except on the one blessed day of the
+week when he enjoys them with the rest of God's creatures?  For months
+together he descends the shaft in the gloom of morning and does not
+return till darkness has again shrouded the earth.
+
+Many of the good wives had looked at their clocks to judge when to take
+off the bubbling saucepans from the blazing fires, when, to their
+dismay, they felt the earth tremble beneath their feet, while a dull
+rumbling sound like the discharge of musketry struck their ears, coming
+from the direction of the works.  Pale with terror, they rushed
+out-of-doors to see a vast black mass of dust and smoke rising into the
+air and forming an inverted cone, beneath which, for an instant, could
+be distinguished shattered beams and planks, corves and pieces of
+machinery, which quickly fell again to the earth.  The next instant a
+darkness, like that of early twilight, pervaded the atmosphere, and fine
+ashes, such as are ejected from a volcano, fell in a thick shower to the
+ground, which it covered to such a depth that the feet of the
+terror-stricken women left their imprints on it as they ran towards the
+scene of the catastrophe--some shrieking and lamenting, but, in most
+cases, the intensity of their alarm preventing them from giving
+utterance to their feelings.  Among them a young woman, superior to the
+rest in appearance, went hurrying on towards the pit's mouth, her hand
+held by a little boy, who had evidently grasped it, refusing to be left
+behind, when startled by the explosion, she had quitted her cottage.
+Her fair hair, escaping from beneath her cap, streamed in the wind; her
+countenance exhibited the most intense anxiety.  Her boy, among the
+oldest of those who had remained that morning in the village, was well
+able to comprehend what had occurred, yet he did not cry or shriek out,
+but did his utmost to keep pace with the woman's rapid steps.
+
+"Perhaps father and Mat had come up before the blast happened, mother,"
+said the boy in a hopeful tone.  "They would be stopping to see how
+things are going on, or maybe to help any poor fellows left in the pit."
+The woman answered only by a gasp.  "Don't give way, mother dear,"
+continued the boy.  "We shall find them both well above ground, depend
+on't."  Still the woman made no reply; her heart told her that her worst
+anticipations would be realised.  She and the rest of the women from the
+village arrived in a short time at the pit's mouth, where, among the
+ruined buildings, the broken machinery, and the heaps of rubbish, they
+rushed frantically here and there seeking for the bread-winners of their
+families, many uttering piteous wails when they sought in vain for their
+loved ones; while others, when they were discovered, bursting into
+shrieks of hysterical laughter, as they flung their arms round the men's
+necks, led them off to their homes.  Some of the miners had, it
+appeared, come up just before the explosion; but what was the fate of
+the rest, far beyond a hundred in number, still below?  Some, it was
+surmised, might have escaped death, and many brave volunteers came
+forward ready to descend to their rescue.  All was quiet--the shaft
+appeared to be free--a fresh corve or teek was procured--a rope attached
+to the gin, to the shaft of which a party of men putting their shoulders
+worked it with the strength of horses.  The corve descended with its
+adventurous crew down the shaft.  The young woman with the little boy
+had been among those who had sought in vain for a husband and son.
+"Have any of you seen John Gilbart and his boy Mat?" she asked of those
+who had come out of the pit and of others standing by.  No one could
+give her any information about her husband, though one had replied that
+he had seen young Gilbart leaving the trap at which he had been
+stationed.
+
+Unlike the other women, on hearing this she uttered no cry, but stood
+speechless and trembling as near as she could venture to the pit's
+mouth, where she waited, with intense anxiety, the return of the corve
+to the surface.  "Don't take on so, mother dear," said little Mark, who
+felt her hand trembling.  "They say some may have escaped, and things
+may have been worse above than they were down at the bottom.  Perhaps
+they threw themselves flat on their faces, and let the blast pass over
+them.  I heard father say, only the other day, that was the best thing
+to do when fire-damp breaks out.  He wouldn't have forgotten that,
+mother, would he?"
+
+"I pray Heaven that he did not," she answered in a scarcely audible
+voice.  Minute after minute went by, while the brave explorers who had
+gone below were searching for their comrades.  How that poor mother's
+heart ached as she thought of what had too probably happened to those
+she loved.  Night had come on, but torches and lanterns and a blazing
+fire not far off lighted up the scene, casting a lurid glare on the dark
+figures of the men, the lighter-coloured dresses and pale faces of the
+women, and the surrounding ruins.  At last the cry arose that the corve
+was ascending.  The eager crowd pressing forward could with difficulty
+be restrained from impeding the men working at the gin.  Then came the
+shout, "They're alive! they're alive!" and six dark figures stepped out
+on the ground.  They were soon recognised by their wives or mothers, and
+hurriedly dragged off to their homes, while the rest of the women,
+bitterly disappointed, waited till the basket should again come to the
+surface.  The same scene was again enacted, and the rescued now reported
+that there were more to follow, though how many they could not tell.
+
+Little Mark and his mother waited with trembling hearts.  Those they
+longed to see had not appeared, and to their anxious inquiries no
+satisfactory reply was given.  Neither John Gilbart nor his son had been
+seen.  At length, another party came up from the depths, but this time
+there were five boys borne in the arms of stronger men.  Alas! two were
+motionless--the arms and heads of the others drooped helplessly down.
+The poor mothers pressed forward--Mark and Mrs Gilbart among them.
+"That's Mat--that's Mat!" cried the child, as one of the first was
+placed on the ground.  The mother, kneeling by the side of the boy,
+gazed into his face.  Too truly she recognised her son, but no
+responsive glance came from his once bright eyes.  "Oh, speak to me--
+speak to me, Mat," she exclaimed.  There was no reply.  She took his
+hand, it was icy cold.  Then she knew that her boy was dead.  The doctor
+came.  "I grieve for you, my poor woman; he is past recovery," he said,
+and went on to attend to others.  Little Mark sat by his dead brother's
+side, gazing at him with awe.  No one disturbed him.  Mrs Gilbart
+waited on, hope not yet abandoned.  More men came up, some fearfully
+injured.  They reported that the rest were in the workings far away--
+already the mine was on fire, the heat and smoke unbearable--that it was
+a miracle any had escaped, that all but themselves must have perished.
+Heartrending were the wailings and shrieks and moanings which arose at
+this announcement, confirmed by the viewer and overmen.  Still many
+lingered on in the hopes that the corve might be again sent down, but
+the viewer forbade any to descend, as it must prove their destruction.
+At length some men came to carry young Gilbart's corpse to his mother's
+cottage.  She and Mark followed with tottering steps.  The sad truth had
+forced itself on her that she was a widow--the two bread-winners of her
+household gone.  Still it was some poor consolation to have recovered
+the body of her son.  Many had not that--they were destined never again
+to see those they loved.  More explosions took place, and the report was
+spread that the whole mine was destroyed.  This was, however, not the
+case.  Science enabled the manager to triumph over the fiery element
+raging below.  By completely closing the mouths of the shafts, the
+atmospheric air was excluded, and the flames extinguished.  After nearly
+three months' labour, the mine was explored, and the bodies of the dead,
+scorched and dried to mummies, were recovered.  None could be
+recognised, and they were buried in a common grave.  Mrs Gilbart knew
+that her husband was among them.  The pit was again opened.  Fresh
+labourers arrived from other parts, and once more those dark galleries
+became the scene of active industry.  The cottages were required by the
+fresh comers, and Mrs Gilbart, with her son and her little girl Mary, a
+year younger than Mark, would have been compelled to go forth houseless
+and penniless into the cold world, had not an uncle of her late husband,
+a hewer at a pit a few miles away, offered to receive her and her
+children into his house.  She thankfully went, hoping to maintain
+herself and others by her needle.
+
+Simon Hayes had been a miner from his boyhood.  Though there were some
+soft places in his heart, he was rough and untutored, and he had many of
+the faults common among men of his class.  He had a wife much like
+himself in several respects, but he had no children.  Though receiving
+good wages, he had saved nothing, having spent them extravagantly in
+obtaining luxuries for himself and his wife, for which they cared but
+little.  By refraining from these, he was well able to feed these
+additional mouths, and for some time his wife made no complaint at his
+doing so.  Still there was nothing saved up for a rainy day.  Simon
+Hayes took mightily to little Mary.  There was nothing he thought too
+good for her; but he showed no affection for Mark.  He was a boy doomed
+to labour as he had been, and the only labour he could think of for him
+was down in the mine, first as a trapper, then as a putter, and finally
+as a hewer.  Mrs Gilbart shuddered when he alluded to the subject.  She
+had hoped to bring him up to some trade which he could follow above
+ground, though it would be several years before he would be old enough
+to be apprenticed.  "But he is not very strong, and he is my only one,
+uncle, you know," she answered.  "Let him go to school first.  I have
+taught him what I could, but he will get on with his learning there
+faster than at home."
+
+"What's the use of learning to a miner?" exclaimed Simon with a gruff
+laugh.  "However, you must have your way, Mary, and I don't mind paying
+for his schooling, though, look ye, if times get bad, he'll have to earn
+his bread like the rest of us."  Mrs Gilbart thanked her uncle, hoping
+that the evil day was put off for a long time.  Little Mark went to
+school, and being fond of his books, made rapid progress in reading and
+writing.  He thus soon possessed himself of the key of knowledge.
+Little Mary was also sent to a girls' school, and being bright and
+intelligent, soon became a favourite pupil of the mistress.  At length
+Mrs Hayes fell ill, and her niece's time was so fully occupied in
+attending on her, that she could gain nothing by her work.  Then there
+was the doctor to pay.  Simon also was laid up for some weeks from a
+severe bruise by a fall of coal.  "I can't stand this no longer, niece,"
+he said one day.  "The next time I go down the pit I must take Mark with
+me."  Mrs Gilbart begged hard that her boy might remain above ground.
+She would take him from school and try to get employment for him on a
+farm.  Simon was obdurate; if she would not agree to his wishes she
+might leave his house.  Her fears were all nonsense, the boy would do
+well enough in the pit, he would get tenpence a-day as a trapper--on a
+farm he couldn't get twopence.  Without telling her what he was about to
+do, the first morning he returned to work he took Mark by the arm and
+led him along to the pit's mouth.  He had brought a flannel suit.  He
+made the boy put it on.  "Now, Mark, we are going into the pit, and
+you'll do what I tell you when we get down," he said, as if it was a
+matter of course.  "I've arranged with the manager to take you on from
+to-day as a trapper.  Though you may not like it at first, you'll soon
+get accustomed to the work, and so let's have no nonsense.  Here's the
+corve all ready to go down--come along."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+LEARNING TO WATCH.
+
+Simon, taking Mark by the hand, stepped on to an iron frame-work or
+cage, suspended over the pit's mouth.  "Take hold of this bar and don't
+move as you value your life, boy," he said.
+
+Mark obeyed.  Several other men and two boys stepped on to the cage, it
+began to descend.  Though little Mark had been hearing of mines all his
+life, and felt no especial unwillingness, yet all seemed strange about
+him.  It appeared to him by the dim light of the lamps which his uncle
+and the other men held in their hands, that the shafts were rushing
+upwards at a fearful rate, while the light of day, which he could still
+see above him, grew gradually less and less.  A giddiness overtook him.
+He might have fallen, had not his uncle still held him by the shoulder.
+How long he had been descending he could not tell, when he found the
+cage come to a stand-still, and that he was down beneath the surface of
+the earth, a thousand feet or more.
+
+The rumbling of the trains of laden waggons coming to the shafts, the
+faint voices of the men in the distance, were the only sounds heard,
+while the lights which flitted here and there only served to make the
+long vaulted galleries appear more gloomy and dark.
+
+"Come along, Mark!" said his uncle, shouldering his pick and spade, and
+holding his lantern before him.
+
+As they stepped out of the cage, they found themselves in a gloomy
+vault, on one side of which a huge furnace was unceasingly roaring,
+while at the other were the stables in which a number of horses, mules,
+and donkeys were kept.  Before them was the main gallery, about eight
+feet high and the same wide, arched over with bricks four thick, and
+extending three miles away from the mouth of the pit.  Out of it for its
+whole length opened shorter galleries or side galleries where the coals
+were now being won.  In all of them rails were laid down for the waggons
+to run on, and on each side were seams of coal, in some places narrow
+near the top, in others close to the ground, and in some there was coal
+from the top to the bottom.  At the entrance of these side galleries
+were doors which had generally to be kept shut, and were only opened
+when the waggons, loaded with coal or returning empty, had to pass
+through.  After Simon and Mark had proceeded a couple of miles along the
+main gallery, they stopped at one of these doors.  "This is to be your
+post, Mark," said Simon.
+
+"When you hear the waggon coming, you are to open the door, and as soon
+as it is passed to shut it.  Mind you don't go to sleep.  You'll be in
+the dark, but that won't hurt you, and if you feel anything running by,
+you'll know it's only a rat.  It won't touch you while you are awake.  I
+began my life in this way, so must you.  There, go and sit down in that
+hole cut out for you.  When you hear the rolley coming, pull that rope,
+which will open the door.  There, now, you know what to do.  Take care
+that you do it," and Simon, leaving his nephew, proceeded on to the
+farther end of the working.  He then commenced operations on a new
+cutting which the under-viewer had marked out for him in the side of the
+gallery.  It was about three yards square, and was to be about four feet
+six inches back under the bed of coal, he began by hewing away about two
+feet six inches from the ground and working upwards, cutting out the
+coal with his pick, shovelling it into a large corve or basket which
+stood at hand ready for the reception of the lumps.  At first the work
+was tolerably easy, as he could stand upright and swing his pick with
+all his force.  As he got deeper and deeper into the bed, he had to fix
+a strut or post with a cross beam to support the weight of the roof, and
+he had to get the coal out by stooping down low or resting on his knees.
+Finally he had to work lying down on one elbow, swinging his pick over
+his head with the other arm in a way a miner alone could have used it.
+
+Occasionally the boy called the putter came by, shoving a rolley or
+little band-waggon before him.  On to this the full corve was lifted and
+the empty one left in its place.  Sometimes he proceeded by cutting a
+space on each side of the square bed of coal, from the roof to the
+floor.  He then bored a hole in the middle of the block, into which he
+rammed a charge of gunpowder, and having lighted it by a slow match,
+retired to a distance.  The powder exploding, shattered the whole mass,
+and it came tumbling down to the ground in fragments.  This could only
+have been done where no foul air was present, otherwise the moment the
+lamp was opened there would have been a fearful explosion, and he, with
+many others, would perhaps have been killed.  He laboured on incessantly
+until dinner time, when he and all the men in the working, including the
+putters, came out, and taking Mark with them, repaired to a central spot
+where there were casks of water, and seats, the only accommodation
+required by the rough miners.  Here their dinners, which had been sent
+down during the morning, were eaten.
+
+"Well, how do you get on?" asked his uncle of Mark.
+
+"I kept awake, opened the door when the rolleys came by, and shut it
+again after they had passed!" answered Mark.
+
+"That's what I had to do!" said Simon.
+
+"I only wish that I had a candle, and had brought a book down to read.
+I should not have minded it much then, although it was a hard matter to
+keep awake!"
+
+"You were not afraid, then?" asked another man.
+
+"What was there to be afraid of?" asked Mark.  "I heard noises, but I
+knew what they were, so I did not mind them!"
+
+"You'll do!" said his uncle in an approving tone.  Mark ate his dinner,
+and then went back to his trap.  He there sat all alone in the dark,
+anxiously waiting for "kenner" time.  It came at last, and Mark heard
+the words "kenner, kenner," which had been shouted down the pit's mouth,
+passed along the galleries.  It was the signal for the miners to knock
+off work, and return to the upper world.
+
+Mark, however, could not venture to move until his uncle came for him.
+He was very thankful when he saw the glimmer of a light along the
+gallery.  Slowly it approached.  It was carried by his uncle, who having
+closed the door, led him along through the main tunnel towards the
+shaft.  Together they ascended, and returned home.  Mrs Gilbart had
+been dreadfully alarmed at her son's absence, until told by a neighbour
+that she had seen him going along with his uncle towards the pit's
+mouth.
+
+A mother's eye alone could have recognised him, so greatly changed was
+he by the coal dust.  She soon, however, got that washed off, and
+dressed him again in his clean clothes.  He did not complain or ask his
+mother to keep him out of the mine, so, although still with an unwilling
+heart, she allowed his uncle to take him.  The next Saturday he received
+five shillings, which was as much as she could make by stitching all
+day, and sometimes late into the night, by her needle.  Simon was well
+pleased with Mark, and reported, after he had been some weeks at work,
+that no fault had ever been found with him.  He was always awake, and
+ready to open and close his trap at the proper time.  When a little
+bigger, he would become a "putter," and have the employment of rolling
+the waggons along the tramways.
+
+Coal mines, it should be understood, are worked in various ways, some in
+squares, or what is called the panel system.  The main roads are like
+the frame of a window, the passages like the wood-work dividing the
+panes of glass, and the masses of coal which at first remain, may be
+represented by the panes themselves.  After the various passages have
+been cut out, the masses are again cut into, pillars only remaining,
+each of which is about twelve feet by twenty-four feet in thickness.  At
+length these pillars are removed, and props of wood placed instead, and
+thus the whole mine is worked out.  There are miles and miles of
+passages in which tramways are laid down, leading to the shaft, up which
+the coal is raised.  As the air in the mine has a tendency to get foul
+and close, it is necessary to send currents of wind into the passages to
+blow it away.  The chief object is to make the wind come down one shaft,
+and then to bring it along through the passages, and so up by another
+shaft.  If the wind which came down were allowed to wander about, it
+would produce no good effect.  The traps or doors, such as the one at
+which Mark was stationed, are used to stop it from going through some
+passages and make it move along others until the bad air is blown out of
+them.  To create a powerful current, a large furnace is placed at the
+bottom of one of the shafts, which is called the up-cast shaft, and the
+foul air is cast up it.  Often, notwithstanding this, the heat below is
+very great, and the hewer working away with his heavy pick is bathed in
+perspiration.  Where no bad gas is generated, open lights may be used,
+but this cannot often be done with safety, as fire-damp may at any
+moment rush out of a hole, and if set alight it would go off like
+gunpowder or gas from coal, killing everybody within its influence, and
+bringing down the tops and sides of the passages.
+
+In some mines where it is important to have ventilation, there are four
+shafts, two up and two down-cast.  The latter, where the coals are drawn
+up to the surface, are in the lowest part of the mine, and all the
+passages are on a gentle ascent towards the furnace, so that the air
+down the shafts is drawn that way.  The furnace consists of a number of
+iron bars placed horizontally across the end of a large brick arch, and
+the roof and sides are built of the best fired bricks.  On the iron bars
+nearly a ton of coals is kept constantly burning and throws out a great
+heat, relays of men being employed in replenishing it.  At the back of
+the furnace is a shaft to carry off the smoke.  Thus the cool air
+circulates all over the mine.  When a large supply of air is required in
+any particular part of the mine, the doors are closed at the entrance to
+the other parts, thus directing the current where it is most wanted.
+This current is so strong that on opening one of these doors, care is
+necessary in shutting it, as it would slam with a force sufficient to
+knock a man down.
+
+These and other arrangements, and the vast amount of machinery now
+employed, had not, however, been introduced when Mark Gilbart began life
+as a "trapper."  The most dangerous operation is the opening of a new
+passage, from which foul air may suddenly escape and poison the miners
+inhaling it, or a stream of water may rush forth, rilling up the
+gallery, and drowning all within its reach.  Numberless, indeed, are the
+dangers to which miners are exposed.  Their condition is now improved,
+but they formerly worked eleven or twelve hours a-day, and occasionally
+even from thirteen to sixteen, far down in the depths of the earth, in a
+heavy and noxious atmosphere, in a half naked state and in unnatural
+positions, kneeling, stooping, lying upon their sides and backs, at any
+moment liable to the loss of life.  The miner has not only to undergo
+bodily labour, but must exercise skill, patience, presence of mind,
+coolness, and thoughtfulness.  Countless, also, are the dangers to which
+they are exposed.  To accidents as they come down or go up the shafts by
+the breaking of ropes, or the giving way of machinery, from the falling
+in of the roof or walls, as also from accidents in blasting, from
+spontaneous combustion, from explosion of fire-damp, suffocation from
+choke-damp, and eruptions of water, and even quicksands.  Sometimes
+floods or heavy rains find their way down unknown crevices into the pit,
+where the miner is working, and forming a rapid torrent, suddenly
+inundates the mine and sweeps all before it.
+
+Such was the life young Mark Gilbart was apparently doomed to lead.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+LEARNING TO WORK.
+
+We must proceed more rapidly than heretofore with Mark Gilbart's
+history.  He did his duty as a trapper, never falling asleep, and always
+opening and shutting the trap at the proper moment.  The rolley boys
+never complained of him, and as he was invariably in good humour, and
+stood their chaffing, he became a favourite.
+
+Often he had to go into the pit before daylight, and remain until ten
+o'clock at night with one candle to light him on his way to his trap,
+and another with which to return.
+
+As he always told his mother that he was happy, and he appeared to be in
+tolerable health, she became reconciled to his being thus employed,
+though she little dreamed of what he had really to go through.  When he
+had shorter hours of work, he employed his time at home in reading and
+improving himself in writing.  He had also a fancy for making models.
+He began by making one of the parts of the pit in which he worked.  Then
+he tried his hand at making some of the simpler machinery of the pit.
+His uncle acknowledged that the rolleys, corves, picks, and spades were
+wonderfully exact,--indeed, was so well pleased that he allowed him a
+lantern and a supply of candles, so that instead of sitting in the dark,
+he could pass his time in reading and cutting out his models, the
+materials for which he carried down with him.  So perfect were his
+models that they were readily purchased by visitors to the pit.  His
+mother, on one occasion, taking some of them into a neighbouring town,
+sold specimens to tradesmen, who offered to buy as many as she could
+bring them of the same description.  At length Mark became big enough to
+be a "putter," or rolley boy.  He could no longer read or make models
+down in the pit, but he got better wages, shorter hours of work, and his
+health improved with the exercise.  Being always wide-awake, he escaped
+the accidents from which so many of his companions suffered, which they
+called "laming."  The injuries they received were from various causes,
+but generally from falling, when the rolley passed over their arms or
+legs, and broken limbs were the consequence.  Some had lost one or more
+fingers or toes, others had received gashes in their faces, or arms, or
+legs, but they had seldom long been laid up, and had willingly again
+returned to their work.  The term "putter," it should be understood,
+includes the specific distinction of the "headsman," "half-marrow," and
+"foal."  The "headsman," taking the part of conductor, pushes behind.
+The "half-marrows" drag at the sides with ropes; while a "foal" precedes
+the train, also dragging by a rope.  Mark, however, was not very long
+employed in this laborious task, for the overseer, hearing of his
+talent, appointed him to the duty of "crane-hoister."  The term explains
+itself.  He had to hook on the "corves," and keep an account by chalking
+on a board the number hoisted up.  In this occupation he was able to
+gain a pound a week.  Some part of this he laid by, and with the other
+he enabled his little sister to attend a respectable school in the
+neighbourhood, where she made great progress, and showed a considerable
+talent for music.  Mark had by this time gained the esteem not only of
+his companions but of the under-viewers, and was favourably known to the
+viewer.  On several occasions when his services had been required, he
+had accompanied one of the under-viewers on his visits through the
+mines.  He thus traversed the main gallery, the side walks, and the old,
+or abandoned works.  In the latter the roof was propped up by
+perpendicular posts and horizontal beams.  In many places the beams were
+so bent by the weight of the superincumbent earth, that it appeared they
+must before long give way.  In many places they had to creep on hands
+and knees to pass through the old workings, which opened into others
+farther on.
+
+As they made their way along, the under-viewer showed him a fault in the
+coal seam, and explained what it was.  Coal seams generally run in a
+parallel position with the various other strata for a considerable
+distance, when, all at once, they abruptly terminate.  This is marked as
+plainly as if a wall had been built up at the end of the seam.  Thus,
+while on one side of the wall there is a thick seam of coal, on the
+other there is a mass of rock.  This break or fault was caused at some
+remote period of the world's history by an internal convulsion.  It is
+known, however, that the seam will again be found, either at a higher or
+lower level than the one first worked.  To reach the seam a tunnel is
+driven right through the rock, when sooner or later the seam is
+discovered.  In the present fault, a tunnel had been run through the
+solid rock for fifty feet in length; and they might afterwards have to
+follow up the seam, extending perhaps half-a-mile, or even a mile, for
+the whole of which length a gallery would have to be cut, from which,
+side workings would extend on either side.  So accurately did Mark note
+all he saw, that on his return home he was able to draw out a plan of
+the mine, with which the under-viewer was so pleased, that he took it to
+the manager.
+
+"This boy deserves encouragement.  We must see what can be done for
+him!" was the remark.  Shortly after this, great improvements were
+introduced into the mine.  Fresh shafts were sunk, for affording better
+ventilation, and for more rapidly getting the coal to the surface.  Near
+them, engines of great power were placed to perform the various
+operations required.  An endless wire rope was made to run from the
+shafts to the extreme end of the gallery, kept revolving by a
+steam-engine down in the mine.  The man walking ahead of the leading
+waggon, to which is secured a pair of iron tongs, grips hold by them of
+this endless rope, which thus drags on his waggons without any labour on
+his part, towards the shaft, up which the coals are to be carried to the
+surface.  The chief gallery was divided by a wall down the centre, with
+openings at intervals of twenty yards or so, to enable persons to pass
+through.  There were also niches on either side, where he could stand
+while a train was passing.  On one side of the gallery the full trains
+ran along on rails from the workings to the shaft; on the other side the
+empty waggons returned to the workings to be filled.  For the purpose of
+better ventilating the mine, an enormous fan, forty feet in diameter,
+formed like the paddle-wheels of a steam-ship, and kept constantly
+revolving by steam-power, was placed over a shaft sunk for that sole
+object.  The suction caused by the enormous paddles drew up all the foul
+air and noxious vapours from the whole of the mine, and at the same time
+drew in from another shaft, more than a mile distant, a current of fresh
+air, amounting from 70,000 to 80,000 feet per minute, thus doing the
+work of a furnace far more effectually, and at much less cost.
+
+Instead of the old corve or basket, an iron safety-cage had been
+introduced, sliding up and down on steel bars, resembling indeed a
+perpendicular rail-road.  Wonderfully changed was the appearance of the
+mine itself.  Mark, who had been employed above ground for some time,
+was astonished, on being lowered in the new safety-cage, to find himself
+on stepping out at the bottom in a spacious brick-arched vault, almost
+the size of a railway terminus, well lighted by large glass lamps
+suspended from the roof.  The machinery, both steam and hydraulic,
+looked in the most perfect order; the steel parts of the engine shining
+like burnished silver.  Trains of laden waggons were every now and then
+arriving.  First of all was heard a distant rumbling, with the "whirr"
+of the iron rope far back in the darkness.  The rumbling sound grew
+louder, and at last the train came in sight.  A stalwart miner, with his
+lamp dimly twinkling slung at his waist, striding along holding in his
+left hand the iron tongs before mentioned, and having behind him a long
+train of waggons, gradually came into the light.  On he went to the foot
+of the shaft.  Here a strong iron cage appeared, having three floors,
+one above the other.  In front of this was a stage, on to which the
+leading waggon was run.  It was then lifted by hydraulic power, until a
+second stage appeared below it.  On this another waggon was run, that
+again rose, until a third stage was level with the tramway--the three
+stages being now level with the three floors of the cage.  At the same
+time three hydraulic rams or arms ran out from the side of the shaft and
+pushed the waggons into the cage, which immediately began ascending.  It
+should have been said that three empty waggons had come down in the
+cage, and had in the first instance been withdrawn and placed on the
+return tramway.  These were at once coupled together by men stationed
+there for the purpose, who had now to wait for the return of the cage
+with more empty waggons to be again filled with three others from the
+full train.  The cage on reaching the summit of the shaft was unloaded
+much in the same fashion by hydraulic power.  This operation was carried
+on with wonderful rapidity, so that the outputs, or amount of coal
+raised, averaged from 800 to 900 tons per day.
+
+More than a mile away from this main shaft was the engine-room which
+worked the endless rope.  On a platform some distance above the ground
+sat the engineer, surrounded by a multitude of signals.  In spite of the
+tremendous noise which prevented one person hearing what another said,
+the engineer attended to all his signals with the greatest accuracy, his
+complicated machinery in beautiful order, and appearing perfectly at his
+ease.  Some idea may be formed of the vast amount of labour employed in
+this mine when it is understood that the working-faces, with gate-roads,
+main roads, air-ways, returns, engine-plains, self-acting and engine
+inclines, extended upwards of eleven miles, and with the addition of the
+old working roads, including those which were bricked up, the whole
+measured the enormous amount of twenty-two miles.  All these passages
+were kept far better ventilated by the fan than they were by the furnace
+hitherto in use, while the pure air brought down, greatly contributed to
+the health of the miners.
+
+Mark had risen step by step.  He was now able to take a house for his
+mother and Mary, although old Hayes and his wife were very unwilling to
+part with them.  Mary had greatly improved in her music, of which she
+was passionately fond, but she had no piano on which to play at home.
+
+Mark, who had a holiday, hearing that an auction was to take place at
+the neighbouring town, at which a pianoforte was for sale, set off to
+attend it.  There was some competition, but he had 20 pounds in his
+pocket, saved from his earnings, and it was finally knocked down to him
+at that price.  With proud satisfaction he at once hired a spring cart,
+and set off with it for his home, where he had it placed while Mary was
+out with their mother.  Her delight at seeing it equalled the pleasure
+with which he bestowed his gift.  The fact was inserted in one of the
+local papers by the auctioneer who sold it, that the piano was purchased
+by the first 20 pounds saved out of the earnings of a collier boy, as a
+present to his sister.
+
+Unhappily, such instances are rare, for although many collier boys
+gained high wages, the money was too generally lavishly spent, without
+thought for the future.
+
+Of late years a considerable improvement has taken place among many
+mining populations, but even in former years it was possible for talent
+to force its way upwards.  Who has not heard of George Stephenson, who
+began life trapper in a mine at six years of age, and rose to be a great
+engineer, father of Robert Stephenson, M.P., and engineer-in-chief of
+the North-Western Railway; of Dr Hutton, who was originally a hewer of
+coal in Old Long Benton Colliery; of Thomas Bewick, the celebrated
+wood-engraver; of Professor Hann, the mathematician, and of many others
+whose names are less known to fame, who have obtained respectable
+positions in society.
+
+Old Hayes had lately moved to another pit some distance from the one in
+which he had hitherto laboured, being tempted by higher wages, and Mark
+shortly afterwards was offered a situation as under-viewer in the same
+pit.  It was worked on the old plan, but improvements were being carried
+out.
+
+Old Simon with four other men were coming along the main gallery, being
+the last of the miners who were leaving the pit for the night.  The rest
+had already gained the foot of the shaft, when a rushing, roaring sound
+was heard followed by a tremendous blast of wind, which, almost took
+them off their feet.  The cage was at the bottom of the shaft.  They
+sprang into it, more than double the number it usually contained
+clinging on.  Before they could give the signal to be drawn up, they saw
+a torrent of water surging on several feet in depth, rapidly filling the
+whole lower part of the mine.  They were soon out of danger, but what
+had become of old Simon and his companions?  Mark had come to the pit's
+mouth intending to descend and make his usual survey of the mine to see
+that all was right.  He soon heard on inquiry of the supposed fate of
+old Simon and the rest.  No one doubted that he had been overwhelmed by
+the raging waters, but that such was the case Mark was not thoroughly
+satisfied.
+
+"They may have escaped in one of the side workings, and if so they are
+still alive, although it may be a difficult matter to get them out," he
+remarked.
+
+He at once ordered the cage to be lowered, and with two men who
+volunteered to accompany him, descended in it.  On getting near the
+bottom he discovered that although the water had filled the main tunnel
+to the roof, there was still a passage running away to the left on a
+higher level which was perfectly dry.  They proceeded along it although
+his companions considered that a search in that direction was useless.
+
+"If the poor fellows were last seen in the main gallery, it seems
+impossible that they should have got up here," they remarked.  They,
+however, went on and on, but no signs of human beings could be
+discovered.  They were returning, and were once more approaching the
+shaft, when a dull sound was heard, as if some one was striking on a
+wall in the far distance.
+
+Mark placed his ear against the side from which the sound seemed to
+come, and he distinctly heard several blows given.  The others did the
+same.
+
+"You are right, Gilbart, that comes from the side working nearest to us.
+The men must be there," exclaimed one of his companions.
+
+"We will reply to them," said Mark, and taking a pick he struck several
+heavy blows against the side of the gallery.  They were replied to by
+the same number.
+
+"How is it that they can be there and not be drowned?" asked one of the
+men.
+
+"The water is prevented from rushing in by the pent-up air in the
+working," he answered.  "How long it will be kept back I cannot say, but
+no time must be lost in hewing a way through to them.  Come, lads, with
+God's help, we will save them," said Mark.  "Keep picking away until I
+return," and he hastened to the shaft.
+
+Having an exact plan of the mine, he was able to determine at once the
+working in which old Simon and his companions were imprisoned.  The
+distance, however, to the spot where he was convinced they must be was
+fearfully great, between eighty and ninety yards.  It would take days to
+bore through.  Would those they desired to save be able to exist so
+long?  The attempt must be made.
+
+Volunteers were quickly obtained, and descending with a dozen skilful
+hewers, he commenced operations at the very spot where the sound of the
+blows had reached his ears.  In a short time a gang of putters with a
+supply of rolleys came down to carry away the coal and earth and rock as
+it was hewn out, but five men could only labour at a time.  They worked,
+therefore, in relays.  Day and night they laboured on without cessation,
+except occasionally stopping to ascertain that their friends within were
+alive, when they were encouraged to proceed by invariably hearing the
+knocking which had at first attracted Mark's attention.  He directed the
+course they were to pursue, never once ascending to the pit's mouth, but
+taking his food near the working, and sleeping in a blanket on the hard
+rock.  Day after day and night after night they worked on.  The knocking
+from within sounded louder.  On the seventh day their leader, an old
+friend of Simon's, struck his pick into the rock before him, making a
+deep hole, through which there suddenly rushed out a stream of noxious
+gas, and he fell overcome.  His comrades, seizing him by the arms,
+dragged him out, narrowly escaping themselves.  Reaching the fresher
+air, he soon recovered, and undaunted exclaimed, "Let me go at it again,
+lads!" and leading the way, once more the bold miners recommenced
+operations.  Still another day they worked on, and the partition which
+divided them from their friends was growing thinner and thinner.  A
+second escape of gas once more compelled them to retreat, but as soon as
+it had dispersed, with the courage of heroes they again went at it.  At
+length, on the tenth day since the water had rushed into the mine, but a
+thin wall remained between them and the imprisoned ones.  They had now
+come to the most dangerous part of their undertaking, the moment they
+had broken away the wall, the compressed air would rush through the
+aperture, with a force far greater than the fiercest hurricane, and the
+water surging up might drown those within.  Still, they knew they must
+risk it.
+
+"Now, lads, we'll do it," cried their old leader, and lifting his pick
+he struck a blow against the rock.  As he withdrew it, the air rushing
+through extinguished the lights, and they were left to work in darkness.
+Notwithstanding this, in spite of the wind in his face, the old man
+worked on with thundering blows.  Every moment he brought down masses of
+rock until he was convinced that he had made a hole large enough to
+creep through.
+
+"Where are you, lads?" he shouted.  "Come on, come on!"
+
+Some faint voices replied, he and four others, clambering through the
+aperture, each lifted a man in his arms.  They could hear the water
+rushing in close to them, but they hesitated not.  Dragging out their
+friends, they staggered along the gallery they had just formed.  They
+were met by Mark and a party of men carrying lanterns, and battling
+against the fierce blast which rushed through the passage.  They were
+thus soon relieved of their burdens.  Quickly reaching the main gallery,
+the doctor took the rescued men in hand, having a plentiful supply of
+food, medicine, and attendants ready.  Though weak and almost exhausted,
+the five men in a few hours were sufficiently recovered to be conveyed
+up the shaft, where they were received by their relatives and friends,
+who long before had given up all hopes of ever again seeing them.
+
+It may be asked how were these men able to live so long during their
+imprisonment!  Fortunately they had with them a small store of
+provisions, and knowing that it might be many days before they could be
+rescued, they at once put themselves on the very smallest allowance that
+would support life, at the same time the air, which as we have seen was
+so compressed by the force of the water, was capable of sustaining
+respiration for a much longer period than when of its ordinary density.
+
+There is a very great amount of vitality in the human frame, and where
+the wear and tear of active labour does not exist, man can live for a
+long period almost without solid food, especially if there be a
+plentiful supply of fresh water at hand.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+THE MINES OF EUROPE.
+
+Mark Gilbart had never thrown a moment away.  By study, perseverance,
+and strict integrity, and the exercise of the intelligence with which he
+was endowed, he had risen step by step to a far higher social position
+than he had before enjoyed.  Though still young, he had become a mining
+engineer, and was greatly respected by all who knew him.  He had the
+happiness of placing his mother and sister in a house of their own,
+without the necessity of labouring for their support.
+
+He was one day drawing plans in his study, when he received a note from
+a Mr Harvey, a gentleman of property, the owner of several mines,
+requesting him to call.
+
+Mr Harvey received him cordially.  "I am about to ask you, Mr Gilbart,
+to accompany my son Frank on a tour of considerable extent, to visit
+some of the more important mines in Europe, and, if there is time, in
+other parts of the world, and he is anxious to have a practical man who
+will enable him to comprehend the different matters connected with them
+more clearly than he would be able to do by himself.  I need not say
+that I am fully aware of the value of your time, and I therefore offer
+you such compensation as I hope you will consider sufficient."
+
+Mark gladly agreed to the proposal.  Such a tour was above all things
+such as he desired, and which, indeed, he had himself contemplated
+taking at his own cost.  Frank Harvey was an active, intelligent, young
+man, exactly the sort of companion Mark would have chosen.  Having
+concluded all their arrangements, they lost no time in setting out.
+
+Having visited the English, Scotch, and Welsh coal districts, numbering
+in all about fifteen, they bent their steps--after seeing the iron and
+lead mines in the south of Scotland, and the north and centre of
+England--towards Cornwall, to explore its tin and copper mines; after
+which they intended to cross the Channel to visit the more remarkable
+ones of Europe.
+
+Their first halting-place was at Redruth, near which is the lofty hill
+called Cairn Brea, whence they obtained a view over an extensive mining
+district.  The country around, covered in many places with enormous
+blocks of granite, looked barren and uninviting in the extreme, and no
+one would have supposed that any portion of the soil in sight was the
+richest in the whole of our island.  Within a few miles of the spot
+where they stood were, however, numerous copper and tin mines, many of
+which had yielded a large profit to their owners.  Among them was
+Dolcoath, one of the oldest copper mines in Cornwall, 300 fathoms in
+depth.  Another, Eastpool, a tin and copper mine, from which ores to the
+amount of 130,000 pounds have been won, after an original outlay of only
+640 pounds.  From the former mine native silver, cobalt, and bismuth
+have also been obtained.  The mineral deposits of Cornwall, it should be
+known, are found in granite and grey slate.  Those of Derbyshire and the
+north of England--lead and iron--in the carboniferous system.
+
+The travellers visited these and several other mines, among them the
+Consolidated Copper Mines, situated in the parish of Gwennap, about
+three miles from Redruth.  They extend along the brow of a range of
+steep hills, into which numerous shafts are sunk.  The length of the
+whole of these shafts together, it is calculated, is more than twelve
+miles in perpendicular depth, and if to these are added the horizontal
+galleries, which perforate the hill in all directions, the extent of
+subterranean excavation is upwards of sixty miles.
+
+Eight steam-engines of the largest size, and thirty of smaller
+dimensions, are employed for drainage and other purposes, their ordinary
+working power being equal to 4000 horses, but when their full power is
+put on they almost equal that of 8000.  To carry off the water from
+these mines, a tunnel, with numerous ramifications has been formed,
+measuring nearly thirty miles in length.  One branch of this tunnel is
+upwards of five miles long, carried underground 400 feet beneath the
+surface, finding its outlet into the sea near Falmouth.
+
+A few years ago the number of tin mines worked in Cornwall amounted to
+139, and to 26 in Devonshire; and about 20,000 persons were employed in
+them.
+
+Although the wages of the miners are much inferior to those of the
+pitmen in the northern coal-fields, yet they have advantages over their
+brethren, being exempted from many of the evils to which the northern
+miners are subjected.  They have no fear of the fatal fire-damp or
+sudden explosions.  Intellectually they are also superior, as they are
+mostly engaged in work requiring the exercise of mind.  Their wages
+arise from contract, and depend greatly upon their skill and energy.
+They mostly have gardens, which they cultivate, and when near the coast
+they engage in the fisheries, thus increasing their incomes and varying
+their mode of life.
+
+After leaving Redruth the travellers proceeded over the wildest and most
+desolate of moorlands, with blocks of stone scattered about, towards the
+wonderful Botallack Mine, on the Cornish coast.  No mine in the world is
+so singularly placed.  Descending to the shore below, on looking
+upwards, the view appeared fearfully grand.  In one part was a powerful
+steam-engine, which had to be lowered almost 200 feet down the cliffs.
+Here tall chimneys, pouring out dense volumes of smoke, were seen
+perched on the ledges of a tremendous precipice.  Here and there also
+were the huts of the miners, disputing the ground with the wild
+sea-birds, while ladders of great length scaled the rocks in all
+directions, enabling them to ascend and descend to their work.  In some
+parts were paths up which sure-footed mules, with riders on their backs,
+were trotting briskly along, where few people unaccustomed to dizzy
+heights would have wished to venture even on foot.
+
+As they had determined to visit the mine, they had to ascend to the top
+of the cliff and then once more to descend among the rugged rocks to a
+ledge about midway between the summit and the ocean, where a small
+building, occupied by the mining agent, marked the entrance.  Hearing
+who they were, the agent at once undertook to guide them, and produced a
+couple of woollen mining dresses and two large felt hats.
+
+Each person having fastened four or five candles to his button hole,
+while he carried another in his hand, they began to descend through a
+trap-like entrance, by a series of ladders, which although strong enough
+in reality had a very rickety feeling.  On reaching the foot of one
+ladder, they were conducted to the top of another, on to which they had
+to step, and thus descending ladder after ladder and passing ledge after
+ledge, they at length reached the bottom of the pit, where the end of a
+pump was seen drawing up the water from all parts of the mine.
+
+They then commenced their progress along one of the numberless
+galleries, which was so narrow that two persons could scarcely pass each
+other.  Now having to step over rough stones and often close to the
+edges of fearful pits, now to bend low under masses of overhanging rock,
+and sometimes to find themselves crossing unknown abysses by shaky
+bridges of planks, while the damp air felt hot and sickly, making the
+candles burn dimly.  Here miners were at work with pickaxes getting out
+the ore.  Having thus gone over, through, and under all impediments,
+they were informed that they were 120 feet below the level of the sea
+vertically, and horizontally 480 feet below low-water mark.  Boats might
+even then be passing over their heads.  Human beings were working still
+lower down.  On the roof, the strips of pure copper could be
+distinguished among the crevices of the rocks through which the salt
+water was seen percolating in an unpleasant abundance.  In their
+eagerness to obtain the rich ore, the miners had worked upwards until
+they had got within five or six feet of the bottom of the ocean.  There
+the metal was still clearly visible, but even the most hardy miners
+would scarcely have ventured on an attempt to win another grain from the
+rock overhead, lest the water should rush in and overwhelm them, and
+inundate the mine.
+
+Passing into a gallery where no one was at work, the travellers listened
+in perfect silence, and could hear the low murmur of the ocean rolling
+above their heads.
+
+"Oh, that is nothing now," said their guide.  "When a storm is raging, I
+have heard the sound of the pebbles, which some large wave has carried
+outwards, bounding and rolling over the rocky bottom.  On standing
+beneath the base of the cliff, where not more than nine feet of rock
+intervened between the sea and my head, the heavy roll of the large
+boulders, the ceaseless grinding of the pebbles, the fierce thunder of
+the billows with the crackling and boiling as they rebounded, produced
+an uproar such as those who heard it can never forget."
+
+For many years a blind man worked in the Botallack Mine, and supported a
+large family by his labour.  So complete was his recollection of every
+turning and winding, that he became a guide to his fellow-labourers,
+when by any accident their lights were extinguished.  He being
+afterwards cruelly discharged, engaged himself as an attendant to some
+bricklayers.  While thus employed, with a hod of mortar on his back, he
+fell from a platform and was killed.
+
+There are several other mines similarly situated to that of the
+Botallack on the coast of Cornwall, where the works are carried far
+under the ocean.  Among them are the Wheal Edward, the Levant, the Wheal
+Cock, and the Little Bounds.  In the two latter, the miners have
+actually followed the ore upwards until the sea itself has been reached,
+but the openings formed were so small that they were able to exclude the
+water, by plugging them with wood and cement.
+
+On returning from the mine, the travellers, having doffed their miners'
+dresses, inspected the outward machinery employed in crushing the ore on
+the landing-place in the side of the cliff, and drawing it up the
+precipitous tram, which leads to the summit, where it is stamped and
+prepared for exportation.  It is mostly carried to Swansea, which, in
+consequence of the abundance of fuel in the neighbourhood, owing to its
+nearness to the sea, to its canals and railroads, has, in the course of
+half-a-century, from a mere fishing village become a town containing
+fully 40,000 inhabitants.
+
+The Cornish mines are not the only ones which run under the sea.  On the
+Irish and some parts of the English coasts there are several coal mines
+which are worked beneath the ocean bed to a great distance.
+
+Another remarkable mine, that of Huelwherry, existed for many years on
+the Cornish coast.  A rocky spot at about 120 fathoms from the beach was
+left dry at low-water, on which small veins of tin ore were discovered
+crossing each other in every direction.  Although the surface was
+covered for about ten months in the year, and had at spring-tides
+nineteen feet of water over it, while a heavy surf often broke on the
+shore, a poor miner, named Thomas Curtis, about a century ago determined
+to attempt winning the ore.  The work could only be carried on during
+the short time the rock appeared above water.  Three summers were spent
+in sinking the pump-shaft, which had every tide to be emptied of water.
+
+A frame of boards, raised to a sufficient height above the spring-tides,
+and rendered water-tight by pitch and oakum, was placed above the mouth
+of the shaft.  Its sides were supported by stout props in an inclined
+direction.  At the top of this wooden construction, which was twenty
+feet in height, a platform of boards was secured, on which a windlass
+was placed.  The water was now pumped out of the mine and the machinery
+set to work; but the sea penetrated through the fissures of the rock,
+and greatly added to the labour of the workmen, while during the winter
+months, on account of the swell, it was impossible to convey the tin ore
+to the beach.  Notwithstanding all these difficulties, the persevering
+projector was rewarded by obtaining many thousand pounds worth of tin.
+At length, during a gale, an American vessel broke from her moorings,
+and demolished the machinery by striking against the stage, when the
+water rushing in filled the mine.  An attempt has been made of late
+years to again work the mine with improved machinery, but the venture
+not proving profitable it has been abandoned.
+
+The travellers also visited the curious Carclaze tin mine near the town
+of Saint Austell.  It is a prodigious hollow or basin, nearly thirty
+fathoms in depth and a mile in circumference, and has the appearance of
+a natural crater rather than a hollow made by human hands.
+
+The sides are almost perpendicular, and a few footpaths alone lead down
+amid the rocks to the bottom.  In every direction are seen the hollows
+made by the miners of ancient days, the white colour of the granite
+veined with the darker metalliferous streaks, and the curious shape of
+the rocks formed by the streams flowing down its sides, give it a
+remarkably picturesque appearance.
+
+The machinery used for crushing the rock is set in motion by these
+streams.  On every side the men, women, and children employed on the
+works are seen moving about in all directions, like a busy colony of
+ants.  The ore is obtained without much difficulty.
+
+A tunnel has been formed at the bottom of the mine through which the
+waters flow after they have performed their task, which also carries
+away the crushed granite, while the heavier metalliferous substances are
+precipitated into the troughs.  Neither engine-house nor chimneys such
+as are seen in other mines are visible, while every detail of the work
+is exposed to view--indeed, the huge basin has the appearance of a mine
+completely turned inside out.
+
+There are two methods of smelting tin.  By the most common, the ore,
+mixed with culm, is subjected to heat on the hearth of a reverberating
+furnace, when ordinary coal is employed.  By the other method, the ore
+is fused in a blast furnace, when wood fuel or charcoal is used.  The
+tin when smelted runs off from the furnace into an open receiver, from
+which it flows into a large vessel, where it is allowed to settle.
+After the scoriae have been skimmed off, the upper and purer portion of
+the mass is refined, and the lower part re-melted.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+THE METALS FOUND IN MINES.
+
+The chief object of the travellers was to inquire into the mode in which
+mines in different countries are worked, the causes of accidents, and
+the best method of preventing them.  Their knowledge was superior to
+that which most of our readers are likely to possess, and it will be
+necessary, in order to understand their proceedings, to glance at the
+mining districts of the world, and to describe some of the principal
+mines among them.
+
+No country possesses, within the same area, so large an amount of varied
+mineral wealth as Great Britain.  Besides the seventeen coal districts
+of Great Britain, we find in Scotland numerous lead mines in the clay
+slate mountains on the borders of Lanarkshire and Dumfriesshire.  In the
+north of England, with Alston Moor as the centre, along the borders of
+Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham, are extensive
+veins of lead.  Cumberland, the north of Wales, and the Isle of Anglesey
+produce copper ore, as also mines of lead and magnesia, with many other
+metals,--zinc, arsenic, cobalt, and bismuth.  Iron in large quantities
+is found in South Wales, South Staffordshire, and in the Scottish
+coal-fields, where the ironstone appears in abundance alternating with
+layers of coal and other strata, and is generally won from the same pit
+as that from which the coal is extracted.
+
+Besides coal, Ireland contains mines of copper and lead, found in the
+slate and limestone ranges, contiguous to the sea coast.  Crossing from
+thence to Spain, we arrive in a country rich in mines, though, owing to
+its distracted state, for many years greatly neglected.  Here lead is
+found in large quantities in the mountain chains.
+
+Quicksilver is abundant from extensive veins of cinnabar in the province
+of Mancha.  In Galicia tin has been produced from very early times.
+Iron ore is very abundant, and silver mines, for many centuries
+abandoned, are now again being reworked.  Gold was at one period
+discovered in large quantities, but is supposed to be almost exhausted.
+
+The most important coal-field of France is round Etienne, near Lyons.
+Mining operations are also carried on in Brittany and the Vosges.
+Although possessing less mineral wealth than England, the French were
+far in advance of us in regard to the management of their mines.
+Germany possessed the chief school for scientific mining.  Its principal
+metalliferous sites are the Hartz Mountains, on the borders of Hanover
+and Prussia, and the Erzgebirge or Ore Mountains, which separate Saxony
+from Bohemia.  They yield silver, copper, lead, iron, tin, and cobalt.
+
+The most prolific sites of the precious metals in Europe are possessed
+by Austria.  The Styrian Alps furnish a vast amount of iron.  The
+province of Carniola supplies quicksilver.  Hungary and Transylvania,
+copper, lead, antimony, and iron.  The most extensive works are found in
+the neighbourhood of the town of Cremnitz and Schemnitz.  The veins in
+this region obtain the enormous dimensions of from 20 to 200 feet in
+width.  The extensive forests of oak, pine, and beech which clothe the
+hills supply fuel for the numerous smelting works, while water,
+carefully collected into reservoirs, moves the required machinery.  The
+whole of the drainage of the mines is collected in a receptacle 600 feet
+below the surface, from whence it is conveyed under a lofty mountain
+ridge by a magnificent gallery twelve miles in length.
+
+Norway and Sweden possess extensive mines of iron and copper, as also
+silver.  The latter country furnishes the best iron in the world, and it
+is much used in England for the manufacture of steel.
+
+Passing eastward to Russia, we find the rich mines of the Ural
+Mountains, which divide Europe from Asia, and then on to the Altai chain
+on the southern frontier of Siberia, we meet with rich mines of gold and
+silver, and other valuable metals.  On the European side of the Ural
+there is a deposit of copper sand-ore, extending over a district of 480
+miles in length, by 280 in breadth.  The mineral wealth of Asiatic
+Russia is far greater.  It consists of copper ores; iron cropping out at
+the surface, gold and platinum.  The Altai Mountains especially produce
+silver, and some gold, with lead and copper ores.  The silver mines of
+this region were worked at a very early period, as is proved by the
+discovery of an excavation a thousand feet in length, from which a stone
+sphinx was dug up, corroborating a statement of Herodotus that the
+Scythians possessed mines of gold and silver, which, according to his
+account, were guarded by monsters and griffins.  Baron Humboldt supposes
+that he referred to the bones of elephants, and other gigantic animals,
+discovered at the present day in the steppes between the Ural and Altai
+chains.
+
+Crossing the Atlantic to America, we find vast quantities of the
+precious metals in the mountains of the Brazils and along the whole
+range of the Andes.  In the province of Minasgeraes, gold is obtained
+from subterranean excavations, as also by washing the surface soil, when
+diamonds are also found.  Auriferous deposits exist in the deep valleys
+among the mountains of Chili, and in Peru and Bolivia are immense veins
+of silver ore.  High up on the Andes are the mines of Pasco and Potosi;
+while in the same region, quicksilver, copper, lead, tin, and other
+metals have been discovered.  The copper mines being nearest the sea,
+are generally worked, the ore being sent to Swansea.
+
+The lofty plateau of Mexico in North America has, from the first, been
+celebrated for its rich silver mines, of which there have altogether
+existed no less than three thousand, but the larger number of these have
+long been unworked.  The gold mines of California and of Australia are
+too well known to require mention; but we must not forget the rock oil,
+concealed for ages in the North American continent.  Both the United
+States and Canada now yield an abundant supply.
+
+The number of metals discovered beneath the surface, including the
+metallic basis of the earth and alkalies, amounts to forty-two, but
+metals, commonly so-called, number only twenty-nine.  These are
+platinum, gold, tungsten, mercury, lead, palladium, silver, bismuth,
+uranium, vanadium, copper, cadmium, cobalt, arsenic, nickel, iron,
+molybdenum, tin, zinc, antimony, tellurium, manganese, tatiaum,
+chromium, columbium, rhodium, iridium, osmium, cerium.  Many of these,
+however, are so rare, that as yet they are of no practical use.  Gold
+has been known from the earliest ages, and is found in scales, threads,
+grains, and rolled masses, or nuggets, which latter have been discovered
+in California and Australia weighing from twenty to thirty pounds, but
+the largest of all met with was in Asia, on the southern side of the
+Urals.
+
+Large quantities of gold were discovered on a marshy plain which had
+been thoroughly turned over, when it was resolved to take down the
+buildings in which the gold was washed, and under the very corner of one
+of them a lump was found, weighing no less than ninety-six and a-half
+pounds troy, and valued at 4000 pounds.  Gold has been found in
+Scotland, and in the county of Wicklow, Ireland, where about 10,000
+pounds worth was picked up in the bed of a river by the inhabitants,
+before the Government became aware of its existence.  Gold is so
+malleable that a single grain can be beaten out to form a gold leaf
+covering a surface of fifty-six square inches, and it is so ductile that
+the same quantity may be drawn into a wire 500 feet in length.  Silver
+is found embedded in various rocks, where it occurs in veins, assuming
+arborescent or thread-like forms, and occasionally appearing in large
+masses.  The largest mass found in Europe was brought from Kongsberg, in
+Norway, weighing upwards of 560 pounds, but another, won from the mines
+of Peru, was said to weigh 800 pounds.  The celebrated mines of Potosi,
+10,000 feet above the sea, were discovered in 1545 by an Indian who,
+when chasing a deer, laid hold of a shrub to assist in his ascent; it
+came up by the roots, to which he found attached a quantity of
+glittering particles, which he at once knew to be silver.  Veins of
+silver have been discovered in England and Scotland, but generally mixed
+with lead.
+
+Iron, the most useful of all metals, is found in large quantities in
+England, in many parts of Europe, and the United States.  At one time
+Sussex was full of iron mines, the furnaces being fed with charcoal,
+until so extensive was the destruction of the woods and forests that the
+Government interfered, and placed restrictions on the consumption of the
+timber.
+
+On the discovery of the present method of smelting with pit coal, the
+works, which at one time numbered 140 in Sussex alone, were abandoned,
+and hop-fields now cover the ground where furnaces once blazed.
+
+Copper ranks next to iron in utility.  In Cornwall there are upwards of
+100 copper mines.  It derives its name from the island of Cyprus, where
+it was first obtained by the Greeks.  It is employed pure for numerous
+purposes, and is also mixed with other metals to form bell metal,
+speculum metal, for optical purposes, and German silver.
+
+Lead occurs in veins most plentifully in mountain limestone districts,
+and usually contains some portion of silver.  There are lead mines in
+various parts of England, as well as in Spain, Saxony, and in Bohemia,
+and some very rich lead mines have of late years been worked in the
+United States.
+
+Tin is found in Cornwall in larger quantities than in any other part of
+the world.  It is generally discovered in the alluvial soil of low
+grounds, where it is known as stream tin, because it has been washed by
+the agency of water from the rocks in which it was originally embedded
+mixed with sand and gravel.  Tin is also found in the island of Banca,
+in the Indian Archipelago, in Bohemia and Saxony, Chili and Mexico.
+
+Mercury is a rare metal.  The richest mines are at Almaden, a small town
+of La Mancha, in Spain.  It is also found in Austria, China, and Peru,
+and a few other places.  It is sometimes found in globules, but it is
+generally procured from one of its ores, cinnabar, a sulphate of the
+metal, of a red colour, and indeed identical with the richly prepared
+paint vermilion.  A thousand workmen are employed in the Spanish mines,
+above or under ground.  It freezes at an exceedingly low temperature,
+and was found solid during midwinter by the traveller Pallas.  Of the
+other metals, some used as medicines, or pigments, or to form alloys, we
+have not time now to speak.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+SALT AND QUICKSILVER MINES.
+
+The object of the travellers was not only to inspect coal mines, but to
+view the wonders of the subterranean world.  It is impossible to do more
+than give a very brief account of the places they visited.  They had
+found their way to the Carpathian Mountains, in order to visit the salt
+mines of Wieliczka, a small town to the south of Cracow.  The valley in
+which the mine is situated is fruitful and picturesque.  Descending by a
+staircase of thirty feet or so, through a bed of clay, they arrived at
+the commencement of the level galleries, which branch off in all
+directions.  Overhead was a ceiling of solid salt, under foot a floor of
+salt, and on either side grey walls of salt, sparkling here and there
+with minute crystals.  The guide led them on through a bewildering maze
+of galleries.  Now they entered a grand hall, now descended by
+staircases to another series of vaulted chambers.  On every side was
+solid salt, except where stout piers of hewn timber had been built up to
+support the roof, or wooden bridges had been thrown over some vast
+chasm.  As they descended, the air became dry and agreeable, and the
+saline walls more pure and brilliant.  One hall, 108 feet in length,
+resembled a Grecian theatre, the places where the blocks had been taken
+out in regular layers representing seats for the spectators.  Here and
+there were gangs of workmen, some labouring at the solid floor, others
+trundling wheel-barrows full of cubes of salt.
+
+Soon after entering, they reached the chapel of Saint Anthony, excavated
+in the times of the Byzantines, supported by columns, with altar,
+crucifix, and life-size statues of saints.  They appeared, from being
+coated with smoke, to be of black marble, but Mark, putting his tongue
+to the nose of one of the saints, discovered it to be of salt.  Many of
+the saints, however, were disappearing before the damp, which enters in
+that higher region from the upper world.  The heads of some, and the
+limbs of others had already fallen.
+
+The guide had come provided with some Bengal lights, one of which he
+kindled on the altar, bringing into light this strange temple; then, as
+the flame burnt out, the whole vanished as if by magic.  Passing across
+a wooden bridge, resting on piers of salt, they entered a vast irregular
+vault in which were two obelisks of salt, to commemorate the visit of
+Francis the First and his empress.  As they reached the floor, a boy ran
+along the bridge above with a burning Bengal light, which threw flashes
+of blue lustre on the obelisks, the scarred walls, the vast arches, the
+entrance to the deeper halls, and the lofty roof, fretted with the picks
+of the workmen.  Another hall was entered, with cavernous tunnels at the
+farther end, passing through one of which, they embarked upon a lake in
+a heavy, square boat, and entered a gloomy passage, over the entrance to
+which was inscribed, in salt letters, "Good luck to you."  Midway in the
+tunnel the halls at either end were suddenly illuminated, and a crash,
+as of a hundred cannon bellowing through the vaults, shook the air in
+such a way that the boat had not ceased to tremble when they landed in
+the farther hall.  The noise was produced by a single gun.
+
+A tablet, on which was inscribed, "A hearty welcome," greeted them on
+landing.  At a depth of 450 feet their journey ceased, although they
+were but half-way to the bottom.  About 1500 men are employed in the
+mines, who labour only six hours at a time, and live in the upper world.
+The blocks are first marked out on the surface by a series of grooves.
+One side is then deepened to the required thickness, and wedges being
+inserted under the block it is soon split off.  This salt bed occupies a
+space of 9000 feet in length and 4000 in width, and consists of five
+successive stages, separated from each other by intervening strata of
+from 100 to 150 feet in thickness, and reaching to the depth of 1500
+feet.
+
+More than ten years ago a serious accident, which threatened the
+destruction of the mine, occurred.  While boring, to obtain some potash
+salts, through an aquiferous stratum, a spring was tapped, which poured
+an immense quantity of water into the lower galleries.  The inhabitants
+feared not only the ruin of the mine, but the falling in of their houses
+from the melting of the salt pillars; but fortunately the inundation was
+confined to the lower galleries, and a powerful steam-engine being set
+to work, the water was again pumped out, and the spring blocked up.
+However, so vast are the excavations that it would have taken many years
+to fill them.
+
+Contrasting with the bright glitter of the salt mines of Wieliczka are
+the gloomy slate quarries of Saint Peter's Mount, near Maestricht, in
+the Netherlands, the most extensive in the world.  For centuries they
+have been worked, both for building and manuring, and probably
+benefiting the agriculturist more than the architect.  In spring and
+summer the labourers occupy themselves in their fields above ground, and
+not until winter approaches do they begin to burrow in the entrails of
+the earth.
+
+The two travellers followed a trusty guide through those endless
+passages, which constantly crossed each other, either to the left hand
+or to the right.  Darkness to be felt, silence profound, reigned
+everywhere, even the human voice seemed to die away without awakening an
+echo--the only sound to be heard being an occasional dropping of water
+from the roof into a small pool below.
+
+Suddenly the guide extinguished his torch, when, bold as they were, and
+well accustomed to subterranean regions, a sensation of awe crept over
+them.  Their first impulse was to feel for the wall, for in vain their
+eyes sought a ray of light, as in vain, also, their ears listened for
+the slightest sound.
+
+Neither spoke for some minutes, and they experienced a sensation of
+relief when the guide relit his torch.  Numbers of hapless beings have
+been lost in these trackless galleries, and here and there are
+inscriptions on the walls, notifying that a corpse was found on the
+ground below.  One poor workman lost his way, and roamed about until his
+torch died out of his burnt fingers.  The lamp of another was
+overturned, and he in vain endeavoured to find his way out of some
+remote gallery.
+
+A French geologist while exploring the quarry discovered a corpse
+shrivelled to a mummy, the hat lying close to his head, a rosary in his
+hand.  It was conjectured to be the body of a workman who had died more
+than half-a-century before, the dry air and the absence of insects
+explaining the preservation of the corpse.  Two centuries ago four
+Franciscan monks resolved to construct a chapel in honour of their
+tutelar saint.  In order to be able to retrace their steps, they took
+with them a large ball of twine, leaving one end secured to a spot where
+people were constantly passing.  Their twine unwound, they at length
+reached a vast hall, probably not visited for many ages.  Near the
+entrance one of them drew a sketch of the convent, and wrote beneath it
+the date of their discovery.  When about to return, what was their
+horror to find that their twine had snapped.  They must have searched
+for it in vain, for never more did they return.
+
+At last the prior, alarmed at their absence, sent parties to explore the
+excavations, but so vast were they even then, that seven days elapsed
+before the corpses of the hapless friars were found, their faces
+downwards, and their hands folded as if in prayer.
+
+During the siege of Maestricht by the French Republic, a party of the
+besiegers occupied the quarries.  The Austrians who garrisoned Fort
+Pierre at the back of the mountain, formed a plan to drive them out, and
+tunnelling made their way towards their enemies.  Although they marched
+silently along, their torches betrayed them, and the besiegers pouring
+in a volley of musketry killed a large number, made prisoners of some,
+and drove the rest into the depths of the cavern.
+
+On the banks of the Nile are several prodigious stone quarries, from
+which the cities of ancient Egypt were built.  Perhaps the largest is
+that of Haggar Silsibis.  Here passages, broad as streets, with walls
+fifty or sixty feet high, now stretching straight forward, now curved,
+extend from the east bank of the river into the heart of the mountain,
+where halls have been hollowed out large enough to contain the Roman
+Colosseum, the rough hewn irregular roof resting upon immense square or
+many-sided pillars, some of which are eighty to a hundred feet in
+circumference.  Here numerous blocks, already completely separated from
+the rock, appear ready to be transported; the labours of the quarry-men
+having suddenly been arrested by the invasion of the Conqueror, who
+overthrew the priests of Isis.
+
+One of the most curious quarries of ancient days is found near Syracuse.
+The greater portion is a hundred feet below the level of the earth, and
+of vast extent, the whole hewn out of rock as hard as marble, the blocks
+thus obtained being employed in building Syracuse.  It is converted by
+the monks, who have a convent above it, into a garden--a romantic and
+beautiful spot, as no wind can touch it.  It is filled with a variety of
+vines and shrubs and fruit trees, among which oranges, citrons,
+pomegranates, and figs grow luxuriantly, and obtain an unusual size.
+Sicily produces sulphur in large quantities--the chief sulphur pits
+being near Girgenti.  Most of the inhabitants are employed in them, to
+the neglect of the rich soil of their island; they labour away in the
+most primitive manner, pickaxe and spade being the only implements
+employed.
+
+When a promising vein is struck, the miners set to work, and filling
+their baskets with the sulphur, carry it out and throw it into large
+heaps of a conical shape.  These mounds are covered over with moist
+clay, some openings being left for the escape of smoke; the bottom is
+then ignited, and the matted sulphur flows out through grooves into
+pans, where it congeals in solid masses.  The passages to the mines are
+so narrow, that persons can with difficulty pass each other; they then
+expand into high vaults, the roofs of which are ornamented with
+beautiful crystals of celestine and gypsum.  On account of the excessive
+heat, the workmen labour in a nearly nude state, their dark brown skins
+sprinkled with light yellow sulphur dust, making them look savage and
+strange in the extreme.  Towards the end of the last century, the
+sulphur mine of Sommatin caught fire, the conflagration causing the
+complete abandonment of the pit.  For two years it raged, until the
+mountain, suddenly bursting asunder, a stream of molten sulphur gushed
+forth, and precipitated itself into the neighbouring river.  The mass of
+sulphur, amounting to upwards of 40,000 tons, was thus obtained by the
+owners of the former pit, who had believed themselves ruined.
+
+There are sulphur mines in different parts of the world, the largest of
+which are in Japan, but too remote to be worked with advantage.  Gypsum,
+or sulphate of lime, better known as Plaster of Paris, is found in
+prodigious quantities at Montmartre, close to that city; but as it can
+readily be worked without having recourse to subterranean excavation, it
+need not be mentioned further.
+
+When gypsum assumes an opaque, consistent, and semi-transparent form, it
+is known as Alabaster.  The largest quarries are near Volterra, in
+Italy.  Here the whole population have been employed for centuries,
+either in cutting it out of the mine, or in converting it into elegant
+forms of great variety, which are sent to all parts of the world.
+
+Great Britain possesses inexhaustible alabaster mines in the
+neighbourhood of Derby.  Some is worked on the spot, but the finest
+blocks are sent to the studios of sculptors.
+
+Quicksilver, or mercury, is among the rarest of metals.  The only two
+important mines in Europe are at Almaden, in Spain, and Idria, in
+Carniola.  The former, situated on the Sierra Morena, was for many years
+farmed off to the Fuggers of Augsburg, but are now worked either by
+government or private companies.  This was one of the most interesting
+spots visited by the two travellers.
+
+Entering a spacious tunnel, completely walled with solid masonry, they
+advanced into the very bosom of the mountain.  Here galleries branch out
+in various directions, hewn in the slate forming the matrix of the vein.
+One of them leads to a vast circular hall, called the Boveda de Santa
+Clara.  At one time a horse gin was employed in this hall for raising
+the ore, but at present this work is performed through a shaft
+descending to the lowest level of the mine.  Convenient steps lead down
+from another gallery to the first working level, and thence the descent
+is by short ladders to deeper storeys.  The galleries are of a
+sufficient height to allow a person to work upright.  The upper ones are
+dry, but the lower are humid and damp, although the water is easily
+raised by hand-pumps from storey to storey into a large receiver, which
+is emptied by a steam-engine.  So extremely rich are the veins, that
+although worked for many centuries, the mine has scarcely yet reached a
+depth of 1140 feet.  The present quantity raised annually amounts to
+eighty-thousand hundredweight of pure mercury.  The ore known as
+cinnabar is of a dark-red colour, and gives a beautiful appearance to
+the galleries.  Sometimes when a hewer detaches a block of ore with his
+pick mass of quicksilver, the size of a pigeon's egg, rolls out, and
+leaping along the floor, divides into thousands of small drops.  Owing
+to the imperfect apparatus with which the ore is sublimated, nearly
+one-half is lost.  Formerly criminals only were employed in these mines.
+They were conducted at sunrise from prison by a subterranean passage
+into the mine, and compelled to toil on until the evening, when they
+were led back again to their dungeons.  In a few years the greater
+number died, through inhaling the poisonous vapours of the mercury.
+Reduced to despair, a century and a-half ago, they set fire to the
+galleries, which, being then constructed of wood, were destroyed, and
+mining operations put a stop to for many years.  Only free labourers are
+now employed, who are not allowed to work longer than six hours a-day.
+Most of these, however, die between the ages of thirty and forty, and
+those who exist longer are affected by palsy.
+
+The quicksilver mines of Idria were discovered upwards of three
+centuries ago by a peasant who had placed a tub under a spring issuing
+from the mountain side.  On attempting to move it, he found it
+excessively heavy, and on examining the bottom he saw that it was partly
+full of a heavy liquid, shining like silver.  Ignorant of the value of
+the substance, he had sense enough to take it to a goldsmith, without
+mentioning the place where he had found it.  In course of time, however,
+a man named Anderlein, having bribed him, became master of the secret,
+and with several others began to work the mine.  In the next century the
+Venetians drove out the Germans, but were finally compelled by the
+Emperor Maximilian to give it up, and he restored it to its rightful
+owners.  The mine has since been worked by the State.  Ingress to the
+mine can be obtained by descending a convenient flight of steps, with
+galleries running off here and there from landing-places, or by
+descending in a few minutes through a perpendicular shaft in one of the
+tubs by which the ore is raised.  The galleries lead to the various
+storeys of the mine, the lowest of which is 145 fathoms beneath the
+surface.  The vein itself descends to an unknown depth, and is
+horizontal, but its extent has not yet been measured.  The ores being
+embedded in limestone of a loose nature, all the galleries had from the
+first to be supported by wooden props.  The wood has, on several
+occasions caught fire, with disastrous results.  Early in this century
+the labourers observed a thick smoke issuing from the deepest part of
+the mine.  It rose higher and higher, spreading through the upper
+galleries, yet no fire was to be seen, nor sound of flames heard.
+
+Some of the workmen attempted to reach the scene of the fire, but were
+driven back by the dense and suffocating smoke, impregnated with
+vapours.  Endeavours were made to smother the fire, but though the mine
+remained closed for five weeks, no sooner was it re-opened than the fire
+burst forth more furiously than at first.  The howling of the flames
+ascending from the lowest depths of the pit awed the spectators, and the
+mercurial and sulphureous fumes arising from it threatened instant
+destruction to all who might approach.  The director of the mine, as a
+last resource, came to the decision of flooding the works, and a river
+turned into the shaft ran down it for two days and three nights.  At
+first no perceptible effect was produced, but on the second a terrific
+explosion shook the mountain as if an earthquake had taken place.  The
+huts near the opening were blown to pieces, and even the stone houses on
+the slopes of the hill, fell with tremendous crashes.  Water, however,
+gained the victory.  Gradually the vapour dispersed, and after a few
+weeks the workmen were able to descend into the pit.  They found,
+however, the galleries torn up, the vaulted roofs burst, and the stairs
+destroyed.  It took two years to pump out the water, which, it is said,
+poisoned all the fish in the Idriza.
+
+High pay being offered to any who would venture in to collect the
+quicksilver, which had accumulated in considerable quantities, many,
+tempted by the bribe, made their way into the workings, but overcome by
+the mercurial vapours, several perished.
+
+The galleries have now been formed of stone, seven feet high and six
+feet broad, though some are still propped up with wood.  They are of
+immense extent, amounting to no less than fifty miles.  As late as 1846
+another fire occurred in the wooden galleries, which was quenched by
+putting that part under water.  The workmen labour in a tropical heat
+and an atmosphere full of deadly vapours.  It is no wonder that a
+premature age overtakes many of them, and that young men are seen
+trembling in every limb, though it is said that those who survive their
+forty-fifth year may live on until they are sixty or seventy.  To
+transport mercury, the greatest care is required.  It is first packed in
+sacks of sheepskin, tanned with alum.  The sack, being pressed and
+punched to ascertain if it is sound, is enclosed in a second skin.
+These are then placed in a small cask, and the cask again in a square
+box.  Notwithstanding these precautions, as the sacks sometimes burst,
+the loss of the metal is great, and the mercury is now generally
+transported in large iron bottles, the stoppers being screwed down by
+means of a machine; in this condition, it is exported to England.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+STALACTITE AND ICE-CAVERNS.
+
+Numberless and varied are the cavernous regions below the earth,
+presenting the strangest and often awe-inspiring sights to the
+spectator.  In some rivers flow hundreds of feet beneath the green
+fields and widespreading trees.
+
+Through the caverns of Adolsberg, Planina, and Upper Laibach flows a
+river known as the Poik, which then assumes other denominations,
+according to its locality.  In some places it forms cataracts, leaping
+over the most picturesquely grouped rocks.  In others it has forced a
+passage amid them, and then flows gently on.
+
+Our travellers resolved to undertake a voyage on the Poik, and embarked
+in a boat, their progress being stream upwards through the celebrated
+cave of Planina.  They had to be cautious, for often the current ran
+with great rapidity, and to keep a watchful eye for rocks which lay
+hidden beneath the water.
+
+Rowing on for about 600 feet from the entrance of the cavern, at the
+end of a magnificent dome, they found that the river occupied the whole
+space.  To this part persons on foot could proceed, as the ground on
+either side of the river was level.  Now passing through a portal 48
+feet high and about 24 broad, and as well proportioned as if cut out by
+the hand of man, their ears were saluted by the thundering roar of a
+distant cataract.  As the archway widened, they suddenly emerged on a
+lake 250 feet in length and 150 broad, beyond which the cave divided
+into two arms, forming the channels of two streams, whose confluent
+waters formed the lake.
+
+The walls of the cavern on either side rose abruptly out of the water,
+with the exception of one small landing-place at the foot of a
+projecting ridge.  Here and there hung masses of stalactite, resembling
+a petrified cascade, the rest of the rock being black and naked.  So
+high was the vault that their torches could not pierce the gloom, the
+impressiveness of which was increased by the roar of a waterfall heard
+through the channel to the left.
+
+Hitherto their progress had been easy, but they now resolved to proceed
+up the left branch.  They had frequently to get out of their boat, and
+wading, drag her over the shallows.  The voyage terminated at the end of
+a small hall with a circular dome, the floor being a lake 180 feet in
+length, and from 40 to 45 feet in depth.  In the roof appeared a chasm,
+sloping upwards through a small aperture, in which a violent current of
+air set in, almost extinguishing their torches.
+
+Beyond the mouth of the chasm another gallery opened out, into which the
+persevering travellers penetrated.  Nothing could surpass the beauty of
+the spar crystals with which its walls were encrusted.  At the entrance
+stood a white figure, which might easily be supposed to be an angel,
+guarding the entrance with a glittering sword, threatening all who
+should venture with profane hands into his sanctuary.
+
+Further on, projected in bold relief, was a colossal statue of a
+monarch, sceptre in hand.  As they proceeded they passed groups of
+stalagmitic cones of all shapes and sizes.  Some like the smallest
+icicles, others rising six feet in height from the ground, as thick as a
+human figure, the whole shining and glittering as the light of the
+torches fell upon them, and standing out in bold relief against the dark
+background formed by the brown wall of the cavern.
+
+Returning to the central hall, they made their way up the eastern
+branch, which is much larger than the one they had just visited, the
+main stream flowing through it.  As they pulled up, the increasing roar
+of waters announced a large waterfall.  They found that enormous masses
+of stone, falling from the roof, had narrowed the bed of the river to
+about fifteen feet, over which the water shot in a broad sheet, fully
+ten feet in height.  The effect as it rushed over the jet-black rocks,
+casting up flakes of milky white foam, when illuminated by the torches,
+was very beautiful.
+
+Having hauled up the boat over the rugged mound, they again embarked,
+encountering a couple of reefs.  They then proceeded on between steep
+walls with a free navigation, for upwards of four miles.  In many places
+the roof was adorned with draperies formed of snow-white stalactites,
+but generally the black walls alone appeared.  In some parts the roof
+descended so low that they were compelled to lie down, and shove the
+boat along by holding to the roof above their heads, until at length
+they found that they could proceed no further.
+
+Of the world beneath the surface some of the most beautiful scenes are
+presented by the ice-caves of France and Switzerland.  One of the most
+curious is the glaciere "Grace Dieu," near Besancon.  In the centre of
+the cave rose three stalagmites of ice.  The central mass was 66.5 feet
+in circumference.  Some distance above the ice-floor on the right was a
+small fir-tree, which had been fixed in the ground, and had become
+completely covered so that the tree itself had disappeared, its crystal
+incrustation showing every elegance of variety in form.  From each twig
+of the different boughs, complicated groups of icicles streamed down.
+The mass to the left, however, was the grandest and most beautiful.  It
+consisted of two vast heads, with several others of less height
+resembling a group of lions' heads bending down, richly decked with icy
+manes, huge masses measuring 76.5 feet in circumference.  On looking at
+this column from the side opposite the entrance to the cave, so that it
+stood in the centre of the light pouring down in a long slope from the
+outer world, the transparency of the ice made the whole appear as if it
+were set in a frame of impalpable liquid blue, the effect of the light
+penetrating through the mass at its extreme edges.
+
+The Schafloch or Trou-aux-Moutons, a vast ice-cave on the Rothhorn, in
+the canton of Berne, is equally beautiful and curious.  It takes its
+name from the fact that on the approach of a storm, the sheep and goats
+fly to it for shelter, although never going as far in as the place where
+the ice commences.  The travellers entered the cave amid masses of loose
+stone, with which in a short time the ice was found to intermingle until
+it entirely hid the naked rock.  They passed between two magnificent
+columns of ice which formed the portal to the fairy cavern.  The floor,
+composed of ice, rose on either side to meet these columns in a graceful
+swelling curve, so that it appeared as if their bases expanded and met
+in the middle of the cave.
+
+They had now to make their way amidst stalagmites rising from the floor,
+met by stalactites descending from the roof.  All the time as they
+twisted in and out among the glittering pillars of ice, endeavouring to
+do as little harm as possible, they were accompanied by an incessant
+fall of small portions, shivering and glittering on reaching the ground.
+
+Passing beyond the two columns, they saw before them a perfect sea of
+ice, which became broader and broader until they reached the edge of a
+magnificent ice-fall, smooth and unbroken, beyond which they were unable
+to penetrate.
+
+They afterwards visited another beautiful ice-cavern known as the
+glacier of Saint Sivres, into which a stream flows, becoming completely
+congealed.
+
+There are many other ice-caverns in Bohemia, Hungary, the Hartz
+Mountains, and in various parts of North America.  One of them, however,
+surpassing in size the others, is the cave of Yermalik, in the province
+of Kondooz, in the centre of Asia.  When Kondooz was invaded by the
+savage warrior Genghis Khan, 700 men with their wives and children took
+refuge in this cavern, and offered so brave a defence, that after
+attempting in vain to destroy them by fire, the barbarous invader built
+up the entrance with large blocks of stone, and left them to perish of
+hunger.
+
+Nearly forty years ago the cave was visited by two British officers, who
+had great difficulty in obtaining guides, as the natives believed the
+cave to be the abode of Satan.  The entrance is about half-way up a
+hill, and about fifty feet in height, and about the same in breadth.
+Squeezing their way through a narrow passage between two rocks, probably
+the remains of Genghis Khan's fatal wall, they came to a drop of about
+sixteen feet.  Down this, by means of ropes, they were lowered by two
+men, who remained to haul them up again.  Passing through a narrow
+tunnel, over a floor of smooth ice, they reached a vast hall, damp and
+dripping, the light of their torches not enabling them to form any idea
+of its size.  Here they discovered hundreds of skeletons, the victims of
+Genghis Khan's cruelty.  Among them was one, evidently the skeleton of a
+mother, holding in its long arms the skeletons of two infants.  The
+bodies of others had been preserved, and lay as they had fallen,
+shrivelled into mummies.  After leaving this vast sepulchre, they
+proceeded through several low arches with smaller caverns, until they
+reached an enormous hall, in the centre of which was a prodigious mass
+of clear ice, in the form of a bee-hive, its dome-shaped top just
+touching the long icicles which depended from the jagged roof.
+
+A small opening led into the centre of this wonderful ice-heap, which
+was divided into several compartments, presenting numerous fantastic
+forms.  In some the glittering icicles hung like curtains from the roof,
+in others the whole compartment was as smooth as glass.  The prismatic
+colours which presented themselves as the torches flashed on the surface
+of the ice were beautifully brilliant.
+
+On every side they were surrounded by solid ice, and, scarcely able to
+keep their feet, they slid noiselessly over the glittering surface of
+the mysterious hall.
+
+The icicles having reached the floor of one of the largest of the
+compartments, had the appearance of pillars supporting the roof.
+
+In Italy and the South of France there are caverns with some distant
+aperture through which the wind enters, and being cooled in its
+subterraneous passage, sends forth a cold blast at the other end, such
+as the Aeolian Cavern, near Terni.  It has been utilised by the
+proprietors of some of the neighbouring villages, who have conducted the
+cold air to their houses by means of leaden pipes, which on sultry
+summer days convey a pleasant coolness through plaster-of-paris masks,
+with wide distended mouths, fixed in the walls of the rooms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+COPPER MINES.
+
+Next to England, Sweden is one of the chief copper-producing countries
+of Europe.
+
+The mine of Fahlun, in Dalecarlia, has been worked from times
+immemorial.  In consequence of the careless way in which the excavations
+were propped up, in the year 1678 the surface of the ground fell in,
+forming a vast pit of above 180 feet in depth, 1200 feet long, and 600
+feet broad, with precipitous and sometimes overhanging walls, so that
+the spectator appears to be standing on the brink of an enormous crater.
+The bottom is filled with masses of rubbish and the remnants of ancient
+shafts, and thick beams of wood are seen protruding in all directions.
+A broad and convenient wooden staircase has, however, been formed on the
+northern side of the pit, by which not only the miners, but even horses
+can descend to their work.  Passing through the entrance, the mine
+gradually widens underground to a depth of 1062 feet.  The chief mass of
+ore is 600 feet broad on its upper surface, greatly narrowing as it
+descends to a depth of 1200 feet.  Round it are other similar deposits.
+As the copper pyrites are deposited generally on the circumference of
+the outer shell of these masses, which are of a very irregular outline,
+the mining operations are carried on in a perfect labyrinth of winding
+passages and galleries, situated at various depths, and supported either
+by pillars or walls.  It at one time yielded 5000 tons of copper
+annually, but has of late years furnished no more than 600 tons.
+
+A romantic incident is connected with this mine.  In the year 1719,
+while some miners were exploring an abandoned passage, they discovered a
+human body, preserved from corruption by the blue vitriol or sulphate of
+copper produced in the mine under the influence of the atmosphere and
+water.  It was that of a handsome young man.  On being brought to the
+surface, people from all directions flocked to see it, but nobody could
+recognise in its features a lost kinsman or friend.  At length a woman,
+with tottering steps, upwards of eighty years of age, approached the
+corpse, when scarcely had she cast a glance at it than she uttered a
+piercing shriek, and exclaimed,--"It is he!  It is Gustavus, for whom I
+have mourned so long, whom I accused of fickleness in deserting me."
+
+She had in truth recognised her affianced lover, who had mysteriously
+disappeared more than sixty years previously, but whose image she still
+bore in her memory.  As he was not employed in the mines, no one thought
+of searching for him underground.  The surface is traversed by various
+crevices, some leading to the workings underground; and probably
+Gustavus, prompted by curiosity, had looked down one of them, and had
+either, losing his balance, fallen in, or been precipitated by some
+jealous rival in the good graces of the once blooming girl, now a
+tottering old woman, weighed down with a double burden of infirmity and
+age.  She probably forgot how years had passed away, as she gazed once
+more on the face of her youthful and handsome lover.
+
+Besides copper, Sweden produces iron of great excellence, won from its
+celebrated mines of Dannemora, and largely imported into England for the
+manufacture of steel.
+
+Leaving the university town of Upsala, and passing through a natural
+barrier of forests and lakes, in which lie the iron-works of Oesterby,
+the travellers reached the place in which the pit of Dannemora is
+situated; not a sign announced the vicinity of the mine, until they saw
+the machines for lifting the ore, and a few huts scattered about, when
+they found themselves standing on the brink of a vast pit or crater,
+whose black and precipitous walls fence an abyss of a mile in
+circumference, and a depth of 450 feet.  Here and there in that cold
+region they perceived patches of perennial snow and along the black
+walls, the dark entrance to labyrinthine caves fringed with long
+stalactites of ice.  In some of these hollows flames were seen creeping
+along the cliff as they issued from piles of fir wood to soften the hard
+rock, while on every part of the deep gulf human beings were at work,
+the clang of their hammers sounding like the clicking of numberless
+clocks, mingled with the creaking of machinery, which brings to the
+surface the casks of ore.  At length a bell tolled, and men, women, and
+children were seen ascending in the tubs, some standing on the edges,
+holding on with perfect confidence to the rope by which they were
+hoisted up.
+
+Silence now reigned below, except when the voices of overseers were
+heard summoning those who had lagged behind, to ascend in haste.
+Scarcely had they reached the upper surface when a loud thundering roar
+was heard, which echoed through the cavern.  The ground trembled as if
+convulsed by an earthquake, while black masses of smoke with pieces of
+stone or ore ascended from the gulf, and the crashing sound of falling
+masses rent from the mother earth was heard.  When all the charges had
+exploded, the miners again descended to their work.
+
+Although it cannot be classed among the wonders of the subterranean
+world, the famous Erzgebirge or iron mountain in the Styrian Alps
+deserves mention.  It rises to the height of 3000 feet, the whole being
+coated with a thin mantle of the richest ore.  In all directions it is
+covered with machines of various forms, horizontal and vertical
+galleries, tunnels and roads, and represents, as it were, a mine turned
+inside out.  The whole of the operations are exposed to view, like those
+in the Carclaze tin mine in Cornwall, only in the former the ore is
+conveyed by tram-roads, galleries, and shafts to the bottom of the
+mountain, where they all unite in one main shaft, from which a tramway
+runs to the smelting-ovens of Eisenerz and Vordernberg.
+
+Among the beautiful productions of nature, rock-crystal may be classed,
+known as the false topaz when yellow, the morion when black, and the
+smoky quartz when brown.  The colourless kinds are often called Bristol
+or Irish diamonds, and the violet the amethyst.  Some few years ago, a
+party of tourists, led by a guide, Peter Sulzer, set out from Guttannew,
+in Switzerland.  When descending the mountain they reached a dark
+cavity, out of which they extracted some pieces of black rock-crystal
+with the handles of their Alpine stocks.  The following year, Sulzer and
+his son, with a few companions, made an attempt to force their way into
+the cave, by widening the entrance with gunpowder.  In spite of hail,
+rain, and bitter cold, they persevered, remaining during the night close
+to the cavern, in order to renew their labours the next morning.
+
+Having widened the entrance, they penetrated to a considerable depth
+into the mountain, through a large cave piled up with debris, in which
+were embedded large planes of jet-black morions.  These beautiful
+crystals had grown originally from the sides or roof, and had either
+fallen from their own weight, or been shaken out by some convulsion of
+nature.  Their toil was rewarded by upwards of a thousand large
+crystals, varying from fifty pounds to more than three hundredweight.
+
+Their expedition and its result becoming known, the whole population of
+Guttannew turned out with hammers, spades, and baskets, to carry off
+what they had left.  As it was reported that the Government intended to
+interfere, they laboured night and day for a week, until, by the time
+the authorities arrived from Ijri, the whole had been removed.  Some of
+the finest specimens are still to be seen in the museum at Berne.
+
+Amber, about which all sorts of fabulous stories have passed current, is
+found more frequently in the depths of the sea than in those of the
+earth.  There can be no doubt that it is the product of several
+conifers, or cone-bearing trees, overwhelmed by the waves.  Although the
+gum which exuded from them has remained concealed for ages, until washed
+up from the bottom of the ocean, flies and spiders, which must have been
+caught when it was in a semi-fluid state, have been found embedded in
+it.  The insects now appear as perfect as they were thousands of years
+ago.
+
+The naturalist, Dr Berndt, has discovered 800 different species of
+insects in amber.
+
+The famed cavern in Kentucky is as well worthy of a visit as any
+subterranean region.  Of late years an hotel has been built near the
+entrance, detracting from its once romantic appearance.  Visitors first
+descend a well-like pit, into which a stream falls, by a flight of
+steps, and then passing under a high archway, proceed along a level
+road, to what are called the vats, where saltpetre was once
+manufactured.  Their blazing torches, numerous as they may be, hardly
+light up the vast subterranean region.  From the large hall they make
+their way through a low narrow passage, known as the "Vale of Humility,"
+into another hall of enormous extent, the roof so lofty that the torches
+scarcely illuminate either the walls or roof.  At their feet can be seen
+the glitter of water, extending far away into the interior, a bright
+stream flowing over a rocky bed into it.  Moving on, they in a short
+time reach Echo River, on the shore of which a boat is found.  When
+looking upwards, it appears as if a canopy of black clouds hung over
+their heads.  On either side can be seen precipitous cliffs, rising
+apparently into the sky.  Silence and darkness reign around, the smooth
+sluggish water alone reflecting the glare of the torches.  The visitors
+are not disposed to utter a word, until the voice of one of the native
+guides suddenly bursts forth into a melancholy chant, which seems as if
+echoed by the spirit of his departed brethren.  Now the notes rise, now
+they fall, as he gives them forth with the full force of his lungs, or
+warbles softly, finishing with a melancholy wail, which produces a most
+mournful effect.  When a pistol is fired off, there comes a succession
+of crashing thundering sounds, echoed from every angle of this enormous
+vault; backwards and forwards they rush, roaring and reverberating from
+wall to wall with terrific crashes.  The guides say it is perfectly safe
+at all times of the year to traverse the cavern, but there have been
+occasions when the waters, rising suddenly, have prevented the return of
+explorers.  A way, however, was at length discovered through a narrow
+passage, the course evidently, at one time, of a stream, up which they
+can climb over the mud, and save themselves from being drowned or
+starved.  This passage has appropriately been called "Purgatory."  In
+one part the river expands into a lake, the gloomy effect of whose dark
+waters, lost in the darkness, is indescribable.  Leaving Echo River,
+they enter another cavern, known as Cleveland Cabin--a fairy region.
+Above their heads, and on either side, the roof and walls are adorned
+with delicate flowers, of snowy whiteness, and domes, turrets, spires,
+shrubs, and trees, as well as with the forms of birds and beasts of all
+descriptions; indeed, figures of every shape which imagination, without
+any great exertion, can picture, appear around.  The representations of
+some are so perfect, that it is difficult to believe that they have not
+been carved by the hand of man, and yet all of them have been produced
+by the dripping of water from the gypsum rock.  The cavern is not
+destitute of inhabitants.  Huge crickets and spiders of an almost white
+colour crawl along over the ground, and rats as big as leverets run by,
+exhibiting sharp teeth and long tails.  Another cavern is called
+"Martha's Vineyard."  It appears as if a vine had climbed up the sides
+and spread its branches over the roof, from which hang suspended what
+look like clusters of grapes, but all of the same stony nature.  In
+another cave it seems to the visitor that he is standing in a wintry
+scene, ice above and ice on the ground, with here and there patches of
+snow, the appearance being caused by the excessive whiteness of the
+gypsum.  Farther on, there is a beautiful grotto, called "Serena's
+Arbour," the walls of which are covered with a drapery resembling yellow
+satin, falling in graceful folds, while through it murmurs a rivulet,
+which makes its way to one of the many rivers running through the
+cavern.  In another, on the torches being extinguished it appears as if
+stars innumerable were glittering in the sky.  On a stone being thrown
+upwards, it quickly strikes the roof, and it is soon seen that these
+seeming stars are produced by pieces of mica embedded in the roof, on
+which the light of a lantern being thrown in a peculiar way is brightly
+reflected.  Although the caverns seem to be of immense height, the
+ceiling in most parts is not more than thirty feet from the ground.  In
+the centre of one cavern, a regular hill rises from the ground, with a
+stream running at its base.  Several rivers are crossed in this vast
+cavern, one is called the Echo River, another the Styx, and a third the
+Lethe.  They are inhabited by fish and crawfish, sightless and perfectly
+white.
+
+This vast cavern, the ramifications of which are said to measure nine
+miles, was not known to white men until 1802.  For many years no one
+advanced beyond three miles from the entrance, further progress being
+stopped by a deep cavern called the "Bottomless Pit," 1000 feet deep.
+At length, however, a daring guide threw a ladder over it, and crossing
+by this means, he was able to explore six more miles of this
+subterranean region.
+
+A bridge has now been constructed by which people can pass over in
+perfect safety.  It is said that no dog will willingly enter the cavern;
+indeed, few persons can pass along its passages without a sensation of
+awe, although with a guide it may be traversed without danger.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+SILVER MINES, ETCETERA.
+
+If a true history of the silver mines of South America were to be
+written it would reveal the cruel death of thousands and thousands of
+human beings, sacrificed to the lust of gain.  High up among the Andes,
+surrounded by a succession of steep and naked rocks, is the town of
+Pasco, built above the mines, from which the inhabitants obtain their
+subsistence.  The entrances to most of the mines are situated in the
+midst of the town.  The irregular shafts descend directly down into the
+interior of the mountain, access being by a series of ladders often
+ill-constructed and rough, ropes and chains being employed to hoist up
+the ore.  Frequently, the overseers having neglected to put up the
+necessary props, portions of the mines have broken in and destroyed many
+of the hapless workers.  In one instance 300 perished at once by this
+means.  In most of the mines the labourers, after getting out the ore,
+have to bring it to the surface in baskets on their backs, often from
+immense depths, and were it not for the sustaining coca leaf they would
+be unable to undergo such excessive toil.  When rich veins are struck,
+the wages of the miners increase, but in most instances they spend them
+in drinking and debauchery, while the proprietors of the mines are
+almost equally uncivilised.
+
+Fourteen miles from the town of Caxamarca is an isolated mountain called
+the Cerro de San Fernando de Gualgayoc, traversed by numberless veins of
+silver.  At its summit rise a number of pyramidal pinnacles.  Its steep
+sides are pierced by several hundred galleries formed for the extraction
+of the ore, as well as by numerous natural openings, while in all
+directions are seen the huts of the labourers, sticking like the nests
+of birds, wherever a ledge has enabled them to be constructed.  One of
+the richest silver mines of Peru is that of Salcedo, but nothing is now
+known of it except its tragical history.  A Don Jose Salcedo, a
+Spaniard, without a maravedi in his pocket, made love to an Indian girl,
+whose mother promised to reveal to him a rich silver lode on condition
+that he married her daughter.
+
+Aided by his Indian relatives, with whom he lived on the most friendly
+terms, he obtained vast quantities of silver from the mine, the entrance
+to which was kept carefully concealed.
+
+His wealth excited the rapacity of the viceroy Count Lemos, who, to
+obtain possession of it, accused him of exciting the natives to
+rebellion, and cast him into prison.  In vain Salcedo entreated that he
+might appeal to the mercy of the king, and promised to give the viceroy
+a bar of silver daily, from the time the ship left the port of Callao to
+her return from Europe, which would probably be upwards of a year; but
+the viceroy, instead of listening to the proposal of Salcedo, ordered
+him to be hung.  No sooner was this known to the natives than they
+destroyed the works, and so carefully concealed the entrance, that even
+to the present day it is unknown.  The tribes afterwards dispersed, and
+even cruel tortures could not induce them to reveal the secret.
+
+There can be no doubt that there are many rich lodes in existence worked
+by Indians, who, knowing that they will be compelled to labour for the
+benefit of their masters, carefully conceal them.  In many of the mines
+of Peru, the natives having almost been exterminated, the proprietors
+endeavoured to kidnap the inhabitants of the Pacific to supply their
+places, but after several hundreds had been nefariously captured, the
+Governments of England and France interfered and put a stop to the
+practice.  In another part of South America, near the town of Cumana, is
+a vast cavern in the Valley of Caripe, which was many years ago visited
+by Baron Humboldt, who found it inhabited by a remarkable species of
+nocturnal bird, called the guacharo.  The mouth of the cavern is pierced
+in the side of the cliff looking towards the south, in the form of an
+arch, eighty feet wide and seventy-two in height.  The summit of the
+cliff is covered with trees of gigantic size, and with shrubs and plants
+growing in all the luxuriance of a tropical vegetation, while a variety
+of creeping plants hang in elegant festoons before its entrance.
+Visitors can proceed for upwards of 430 feet without being compelled to
+light their torches.  When the light of day begins to fail, the hoarse
+cries of the nocturnal birds are heard coming out of the dark recesses
+of the interior.  The guacharo is of the size of the common fowl; its
+hooked bill is white, like that of the goat-sucker, and furnished at the
+base with stiff hairs, directed forwards.  The plumage is of a sombre
+brownish grey, mixed with black stripes and large white spots.  Their
+eyes are incapable of bearing the light of day, and their wings are
+disproportionately large, measuring no less than four and a-half feet
+from tip to tip.  The birds quit the cavern only at nightfall, to feed
+on fruits.  A most horrible noise is made by them in the dark recesses
+of the cavern, and the clamour increases as they are disturbed by the
+visitors advancing deeper into it with torches, and those nestling in
+the side avenues begin to utter their mournful cries.  When the first
+sink into silence, it seems as if the more remote inhabitants were
+alternately complaining to each other of the intruders.  The nests of
+these birds are fixed fifty or sixty feet from the ground, in
+funnel-shaped holes, with which the cavern roof is pierced like a sieve.
+
+Armed with poles, the natives once a year, about mid-summer, enter the
+cavern and knock down the young birds, while the old ones, with
+lamentable cries, hover over the heads of the robbers.  The young which
+are taken are opened on the spot, when the peritonaeum is found loaded
+with fat, and a layer of substance reaches from the abdomen to the vent,
+forming a kind of cushion between the bird's legs.  At this period,
+called by the Indians the oil harvest, huts are erected by them, with
+palm leaves, near the entrance.  Here the fat of the young birds is
+melted in clay pots, over a brushwood fire; but although thousands are
+killed, not more than 160 jars of clear oil are obtained.  A small river
+flows through the cavern, and the visitor is compelled, as he proceeds,
+to wade through water, not, however, more than two feet deep.  From the
+entrance as far as 1458 feet the cavern maintains the same direction,
+width, and height, after which it loses its regularity, and its walls
+are covered with stalactites.  The same bird has been found in the
+province of Bogota, and may probably be discovered in other caverns.
+Animal life exists in considerable quantities in many subterranean
+regions, such as beetles, eyeless spiders, scorpions, millipedes, and
+crustaceans.  The most curious is the Proteus anguinus, which breathes
+at the same time through lungs and gills.  It has a long eel-like body,
+with an elongated head, and four very short and thin legs.  The skin is
+flesh-coloured, and so translucent that the liver and heart, which beat
+about fifty times a minute, can be seen distinctly beneath.  Two little
+black spots, resembling eyes, lie buried under the skin, and are only
+partially developed.  Weak as it appears, it glides rapidly through the
+water, when its four little legs remain motionless; it uses them,
+indeed, only for creeping, and then in a very imperfect manner.  Seven
+distinct species of proteus have been discovered, six of which were
+found in the cavern of Carniola, besides crickets, spiders, and a few
+crustaceae.  A peculiar blind rat is found in the Mammoth Cave of
+Kentucky.  A blind fish swims in its rivers, and Professor Agassiz is of
+opinion that they, like all other blind animals of the cavern world,
+have at no time been connected with the world of light.
+
+Vegetable life also exists in caverns, but consists of such mushrooms or
+fungi which, shunning the light, love darkness and damp.  For their
+existence, however, moisture and warmth of air is necessary, but they
+are invariably dependent on organic basis, and are commonly found
+germinating on pieces of wood, particularly in a state of decomposition.
+More than seventy subterranean fungi have been discovered, some
+remarkable for their size.  A few years ago a fungus was found growing
+from the wood-work of a tunnel near Doncaster, which measured no less
+than fifteen feet in diameter.
+
+In the neighbourhood of Paris the cultivation of edible mushrooms is
+extensively carried on in the catacombs or caverns, seventy or eighty
+feet below the surface, where the temperature is uniform all the year
+round.  In one of the caves of Mount Rouge there are no less than six or
+seven miles of mushroom bedding.  Among the wonders of the subterranean
+world must be classed the bone caves of Europe and other parts of the
+world.  In some caves in England, the bones of a prodigious bear have
+been found, and many hundreds of those of a hyena, considerably larger
+and more formidable than those existing in Africa.  Besides the bear and
+hyena, upwards of a hundred species of extinct animals have been found
+in the ossiferous caves of Great Britain, among them being those of the
+elephant and a rhinoceros.  Though in Europe bone caves contain the
+remains of animals very different from those now existing in the same
+regions, yet in the caves of Brazil extinct species of nearly all the
+territorial quadrupeds now inhabiting this region occur.  The Australian
+caverns contain fossil bones of a large extinct kangaroo.  In New
+Zealand the wingless apteryx is still found in the wilds, and the caves
+of that country show us that it was preceded by other wingless birds of
+gigantic stature; among them the moa, which, when alive, must have stood
+about thirteen or fourteen feet high.  A complete leg of the bird has
+been discovered six feet in length, and portions of the eggs show that
+they had been about 6 or 7 inches diameter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+ARRANGEMENTS OF THE MINES.
+
+In Germany mining operations are carried on in the most systematic
+manner.  Miners are dressed as their ancestors were hundreds of years
+ago, and they cling pertinaciously to their ancient usages.  In some
+workings prayers are offered up, led by the engineer, before the miners
+descend to their work, while they stand grouped round him at the opening
+of the mine, a custom which might well be adopted in our own country.
+The German miner retains also the superstitions of his forefathers, and
+still believes in the genii of the mines, named Nickel and Kobald, after
+whom he has called two metals, nickel and cobalt, originally discovered
+in the mines of Saxony.
+
+The Germans have introduced into their mines a regular military system,
+and the engineers, who are denominated captains, wear when in full dress
+a uniform of a very military appearance, set off by epaulets and gold
+embroidery.  Not inferior to them, however, are the Cornish miners,
+their captains being those who have risen by their industry and
+intelligence from the lowest to the highest grades, although men of less
+education than their German brethren.
+
+The Spanish miners are a sober and frugal race, enjoying their
+cigarettes even while at work.  On leaving the mine they put on their
+snuff-coloured cloaks and broad-brimmed sombreros.  In the southern part
+of the Peninsula they wear grass sandals, cloaks of bright colours, and
+handkerchiefs bound round their heads.  Leading lives of toil and
+hardship, their huts are wretched abodes built of stones and mud, their
+beds the ground, an iron or copper kettle hung from the roof above the
+fire in the centre of the cabin, a few wicker baskets, and a waterbottle
+of porous clay constitute their furniture.  Still, the lot of the miner
+of the Sierra Morena is far superior to that of the miner of Almaden,
+who, poisoned by the noxious vapours of mercury, quickly succumbs, ere
+he has gained the prime of manhood.
+
+In South America the mining operations of the inhabitants somewhat
+resemble those of their Spanish ancestors, their habits and customs
+being imitated by the Indians, who have, however, to perform the harder
+part of the work.  While Mexico and Peru were under the mother country,
+the Mita or law of compulsion existed, the Indians being forced to toil
+against their will in the mines, but since the emancipation of the
+colonies and the abolition of that nefarious law, they have returned to
+their agricultural pursuits, and are only occasionally found of their
+own free will labouring in the mines.
+
+Various modes are adopted for descending the mines.  In some merely a
+single rope or chain with a loop at the end in which the miner places
+his foot is used, even when the depth is several hundred feet; in other
+mines baskets or tubs in which three or four men can stand are employed.
+While one of these is hauled up, another descends, and often fearful
+accidents have occurred by the tubs striking against each other, when
+their occupants have been thrown out.  Occasionally the ropes and chains
+have given way, and the hapless miners have been dashed to pieces.
+
+Some few years ago, as the engineer and several men of the mine of Meons
+were descending standing in a tub, each with a lamp in one hand, and
+holding on to the chain above him with the other, a couple of tubs
+loaded with coal unhooked theirs, which fell to the bottom.
+Providentially they had not relaxed their grasp of the chain above their
+heads, and at once letting go their lamps and desperately seizing it
+with both hands, they continued their descent, though huge lumps of coal
+were falling out of the tubs above them.  Wonderful to relate, they
+reached the bottom in safety.  On another occasion, while the same
+engineer was ascending in a tub, it was upset in consequence of the
+engineman raising the rope too suddenly.  The engineer hanging on by one
+leg, with his head downwards was hoisted a height of forty yards, before
+the alarm was given and he was lowered to the bottom.
+
+In the same mine, another engineer, while descending in a tub, had his
+clothes caught by a strut which projected from the side of the pit; he
+here hung suspended while his companions continued to descend, terrified
+for his safety and alarmed for their own, as should he fall, they
+expected to be crushed by his weight.  In vain they shouted for
+assistance, the men at the top of the pit having gone out of hearing.
+Not until they reached the bottom could they send any aid to their
+companion.  He in the meantime had been vainly endeavouring to find some
+support so as to relieve the strain on his torn garments, which
+threatened every instant to give way.  After hanging thus for twenty
+minutes, he was at length set free, but no sooner was he received in the
+tub than he became insensible.  A severe illness of long duration
+followed, but he ultimately recovered, though he ever afterwards
+preferred going down the ladders to descending in a tub.  Anecdotes of
+the same description could be given without end.  Most accidents of this
+character have ended fatally.  To avoid them various inventions have
+been devised, one of which is known as the mounting machine, or
+man-engine.  It consists of two parallel rods, furnished at equal
+distances with steps, while one is raised to a certain height the other
+is lowered to the same distance.  While the movement of the crank is on
+its turning point, the miner passes from the step on which he is
+standing to the opposite step of the other.  As they are constantly
+moving up and down, his next step is back again to the rod he had before
+left, which rising a few feet, he is able to step back to the other,
+just as it, having gone down, is once more ascending; and thus he
+reaches the top with little fatigue.
+
+Far superior to this mode of ascending or descending are the
+safety-cages introduced of late years, which have guides the whole
+length of the shaft, and bonnets or roofs to protect the heads of the
+men within.  They are made with several stages, in which either the tubs
+or waggons can be placed, or where the miners can stand or sit.  If a
+rope breaks, a spring placed above the cage and kept taut by the tension
+of the rope, is set free, and acts upon a double clutch made of the best
+tempered steel.  This catch or wedge falls between the wooden guide and
+a part of the cage, and brings the latter immediately to a stand-still.
+By this means numberless accidents have been prevented.  The man-engines
+which have been described are dangerous for novices, for should a person
+stop at the wrong time, he may be hurled to the bottom, or crushed at
+the return stroke.
+
+One of the most frequent accidents to which miners are exposed arises
+from an outbreak of fire-damp.  To avoid this, various safety-lamps have
+been invented.  The most celebrated is that known as Sir Humphrey Davy's
+lamp.  The flame is enclosed in a fine wire gauze, through which, under
+ordinary circumstances, the gas cannot penetrate.  There are other lamps
+in use constructed on the same principle, but superior in some respects.
+Too often, however, the miners open them at some fatal moment, or enter
+the mine, against orders, with naked candles.  Still, by means of these
+lamps, when properly employed, many accidents have been prevented.
+Another invention exists by which a person can enter in the midst of
+impure air.  The apparatus was devised by Monsieur Kouquayrol, a French
+engineer.  It consists of a reservoir made of sheet iron, into which the
+air is forced, and, by an ingeniously contrived pump, is secured like a
+knapsack to a man's back, and the air is conveyed by means of a tube to
+the mouth of a nose, and thus into the lungs at the ordinary pressure,
+while a small external valve allows of the escape of the air after it
+has been respired.
+
+A still more simple apparatus has been invented by Monsieur Galibert.
+The system for condensing the pure air is more perfect, while the
+reservoir consists of a well-prepared goat-skin, which, when inflated, a
+man can with ease carry on his back.  It is furnished with a similar
+contrivance to the former, a tube passing from the reservoir to the
+mouth, while the nostrils are compressed, the eyes and head are
+protected, so that provided with it, a person may exist for a quarter of
+an hour in the foulest atmosphere, or in the midst of dense smoke.
+Although the metal miner is subjected to fewer accidents than are his
+brethren working in coal mines, the atmosphere in the former is far more
+destructive to human life.  In lead mines, the duration of life averages
+scarcely more than thirty-two years, and in those containing arsenical
+pyrites or quicksilver ores, the average is still lower.  Before the use
+of gunpowder in underground operations, the rocks containing the ore
+were attacked with fire, indeed the practice is still retained in some
+countries.  Huge wood fires are made up against the face of the rock,
+which becomes shattered and traversed by cracks, and when cooled, it is
+easily detached with a pick or fork.  Of late years, however, machines
+have been devised for boring or breaking the rock.  Some form a hole by
+the continuous motion of a rotating drill, others by means of
+intermittent blows.  One of these rock-boring machines, manufactured by
+Messrs. Turner, of Ipswich, performs its work by a combination of both
+these operations.  By the employment of these machines, the formation of
+the tunnel under Mount Cenis was greatly facilitated.  An example has
+already been given of the way in which people have been saved from the
+effects of inundations in mines, others have been dug out when buried by
+the fall of roofs, but almost countless are the numbers who have
+perished from other causes, for if the first have destroyed their
+hundreds, the fire-damp in coal mines has proved the destruction of
+thousands.  It was at one time considered right every night to provoke
+an explosion by lighting the fire-damp in order that the working stalls
+should be accessible next morning.  The man who performed this dangerous
+operation wore a thick covering of wool or leather, his face was
+protected, and his head was covered by a hood like a monk's cowl.  He
+crept along the ground, carrying in his hand a long pole with a light at
+the end of it.  He was known in the English mines as the fireman, but in
+the French he was called either the cannonier, the monk, or the
+penitent, the latter name being given him from his dress resembling that
+of certain so-called religious orders in the Romish Church.  Too
+frequently the hapless penitent was destroyed by the explosion he had
+provoked.
+
+Our two friends, however, might have written several large volumes had
+they given accounts of even a portion of the interesting matters
+concerning mines which they gathered up during their long and varied
+tour.
+
+Mark did not fail to benefit largely by the information he obtained, and
+he ultimately, with the numerous improvements he introduced, became the
+proprietor of two of the coal mines in which he had worked in his
+boyhood, while his young sister, on whom he had had the satisfaction of
+bestowing a high-class education, refined in mind and manners, became
+the wife of his friend and fellow-traveller.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Mines and its Wonders, by W.H.G. Kingston
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