Perils of the Miner’s Life—Number of Casualties in British and Foreign Coal Mines—Life in a Mine—Occurrence of Ores—Extent and Depth of Metallic Veins—Mines frequently discovered by Chance—The Divining Rod—Experimental Borings—Stirring Emotions during their Progress—Sinking of Shafts—Precautions against Influx of Water—Expense—Shaft Accidents—Various Methods of working Mineral Substances—Working in Direct and Reverse Steps—Working by Transverse Attacks—Open Quarry Workings—Pillar and Stall System—Long Wall System—Dangerous Extraction of Pillars—Mining Implements—Blasting—Heroes in Humble Life—Firing in the Mine of Rammelsberg—Transport of Minerals Underground—Modern Improvements—Various Modes of Descent—Corfs—Wonderful Preservation of a Girl at Fahlun—The Loop—Safety Cage—Man Machines—Timbering and Walling of Galleries—Drainage by Adit Levels—Remarkable Adits—The Great Cornish Adit—The Georg Stollen in the Harz—The Ernst August Stollen—Steam Pumps—Drowning of Mines—Irruption of the Sea into Workington Colliery—Hubert Goffin—Irruption of the River Garnock into a Mine—Ventilation of Mines—Upcast Shafts—Fire Damp—Dreadful Explosions—The Safety Lamp—The Choke Damp—Conflagrations of Mines—The Burning Hill in Staffordshire.

Few metals are found in a native state, nor are they commonly scattered in loose masses, nuggets, grains, or scales over the surface of the earth. Hence the seeker’s trouble is by no means confined to the task of gathering these masses, or of separating them by washing from the alluvial sand or gravel with which they are mixed; much more frequently they are chemically combined with other substances from which a far advanced state of science is alone able to separate them, or deeply imbedded in subterranean mines, often so difficult of access as to tax for their working all the energies of man and all the resources of his metallurgic skill. The labours of the miner require indeed no less courage and presence of mind than those of the mariner. He no more knows whether he shall ever return from the pit into which he descends in the morning for his hard day’s work than the sailor knows whether he shall ever revisit the port which he is leaving. He is perpetually at war with fire and earth, with air and water, and this eternal strife levies a no less heavy tribute of death and suffering than the storms of the raging seas.

In the year 1867, 1,190 persons perished in our 3,192 collieries, which employ a total of 333,116 workmen. Of these, 286 were killed by explosions; 449 by falls of rock; 211 by other subterranean causes; 156 in the shafts; and 88 above ground. In the same year, 293 lives were lost in the Prussian collieries, where 102,773 workmen find employment. Of these, 39 perished by fire-damp; 106 by fall of roof; 65 in shafts; 74 by casualties under ground; and 9 by casualties above ground. These melancholy lists may give us some idea of the number of serious but non-fatal accidents which are not mentioned in the official accounts. Every visitor to a coal-mine will meet with many pit lads who have been ‘lamed’ (or injured) several times in a few years, and who reckon events by the mournful chronology of their various ‘lamings.’ Collieries, as will be seen in the sequel, are indeed peculiarly liable to frightful accidents; yet the number of lives lost in the inspected ironstone mines of Great Britain, in 1866, amounted to 81. Extending our view to the mines of Austria and Russia, of France and Belgium, of Mexico and Peru, &c., &c., where the same dangers cause, no doubt, an equal amount of death or suffering, we may justly conclude that not a day, probably not an hour, passes that does not doom more than one miner to an untimely grave or to permanent mutilation.

But if mining is attended with a lamentable amount of individual suffering, the benefits derived from it by mankind in general are so important that the whole fabric of modern civilisation may be said to rest upon its basis.

Coal and the useful metals rule the world. Wherever they occur in large masses they establish the prosperity of a people on the surest foundations; and England is in a great measure indebted for her high station among the nations of the earth to the treasures hidden beneath her soil.

A large mine displays unquestionably some of the most interesting scenes of human activity. The restless industry pervading its subterranean caves and galleries impresses the visitor with feelings of wonder akin to those which he experiences when he first sets foot on a man-of-war; and if he feels giddy on seeing the sailor climb the loftiest masts, the sight of the yawning abyss into which the miner undauntedly descends seems terrible to his unaccustomed eye; and as he penetrates further and further into the recesses of this unknown world, his sensations are not rendered more agreeable.

The intricate passages branching out into a mysterious distance; the vaults and high halls faintly illumined here and there by a glimmering lamp; the dark forms emerging every now and then from some obscure recess, and then again plunging into night, like demon shades; the clanking of hammers, the rushing of waters, the creaking of wheels, the monotonous sound of machinery, or the loud explosion which, repeated by subterranean echoes, rolls like muttering thunder from vault to vault, the oppressive air in the low galleries, through which he can only move in a stooping position; the fear of being crushed any moment by a falling rock, or shivered to atoms by fire-damp combustion,—all combine to produce an impression which can seldom be made by any scenes above ground.

The admiration which this imposing spectacle necessarily calls forth in his mind increases when he reflects how much skill and experience was required, and how many improvements and inventions had to be made, before mining could be brought to its present state of perfection.

Ores sometimes occur, like coal, in layers or beds, running parallel with the strata of the inclosing rocks, or in prodigious irregular masses. Most commonly, however, they are found in veins traversing the rocks in every conceivable direction, and filling the crevices and chasms which former terrestrial revolutions have rent in the hard stone. From the wild and titanic powers that have here been at work, it may easily be imagined how irregular the direction of these veins must be, and under how many various forms they must appear. Here they are horizontal, there vertical; here they form thin layers, there they fill chasms several hundred feet thick. Sometimes they split into several minor branches, or make abrupt bends, and frequently they have been rent, torn, or displaced in every possible manner by subsequent revolutions.

Their length is as various as their thickness or their direction. Some are short, while others traverse the rocks to a distance of many miles. Thus the argentiferous veins in the neighbourhood of Clausthal, in the Harz, are three leagues long, and the famous Veta Madre, or chief lode of Guanaxuato in Mexico, has been traced for a length of eight miles.

With regard to depth, the lower extremity of hardly a single mineral bed or vein of any note has as yet been pointed out, though many have been worked to a considerable depth. Thus, one of the pits of St. Andreasberg, in the Harz, is 2,485 feet deep, though, on account of its high situation in the mountains, not much more than 280 feet below the surface of the sea, while, in the coal mines of Valenciennes and LiÈge, the deepest shafts are sunk from 1,300 to 1,600 feet below the level of the ocean. The shaft of the colliery of SacrÉe Madame, near Charleroi, is 800 yards deep, and that of Dukinfield Colliery 2,050 feet.

The great difficulty of carrying on mining operations at great depths will, probably, for ever prevent most metalliferous veins from being followed to their origin in the bowels of the earth; for while on high mountains the rarefaction of the atmosphere prevents respiration, the increasing pressure or impurity of the air at a depth of four or five thousand feet below the level of the sea must necessarily hinder the free expansion of the lungs. The weakness of our organisation soon sets limits to our progress, whether we wish to rise into the air or to penetrate into the interior of the earth; and it is only on spiritual wings that we soar aloft to the stars, or wander through the mysterious depths of our planet.

How have the ores been collected or precipitated in the veins or strata where they are often found in such enormous quantities? Partly they ascended as vapour from unknown depths, and then were condensed in the crevices, mixing with the gangue or the stones which filled the volcanic chasms; and partly their solutions, of which the mineral springs of the present day afford us so many examples, permeated the porous rocks, and saturated them on cooling, or were forced to relinquish their valuable contents by some more powerful chemical affinity. Thus, numberless years before man appeared upon the stage of his future empire, the means were provided without which it would never have been possible for him to establish his dominion over the earth, and to make himself master of the treasures it bears on its surface.

When we consider the frequent upheavings and subsidences of the earth-rind and the denuding power of water, which, in the long series of ages, cuts deep ravines into the mountains and washes away whole strata, we cannot wonder that many metalliferous veins emerge or crop out on the surface of the earth, so that a fortunate chance sufficed for their discovery. Thus, a poor Indian looking for wood first found the rich deposits of silver that had so long been buried in obscurity under the sterile soil of Copiapo in Chili (1632). Partridges, in whose stomachs grains of gold were found, are said to have led to the discovery of the rich mines of Kremnitz and Schemnitz in Hungary; and Ramm, a huntsman of the emperor Otho the Great, having bound his horse to a tree in a forest near Goslar in the Harz Mountains, the fretful steed, stamping with impatience and tearing up the soil, pointed out the celebrated lode of the Rammelsberg, which is still worked to the present day.

But if in these and similar instances the treasures of the subterranean world have revealed themselves spontaneously to man, in many other cases laborious and costly investigations have been found necessary for their discovery.

As civilisation advanced, and the value of the metals, of coal and salt, came to be more and more appreciated, nothing could be more natural than the desire of no longer relying upon the discoveries of chance or upon the mines bequeathed by former ages, but of sounding the mysterious recesses of the earth, and forcing her, by dint of patient exploration, to reveal the riches she conceals under her surface.

Thus, as far back as the eleventh century, the divining rod came into practice, and found full credence in a superstitious age. A forked branch of the hazel-tree, cut during a peculiar phase of the moon, was the means employed in Germany for the discovery of buried treasures, of veins of metal, of deposits of salt, or of subterranean sources. But the miraculous rod did not indiscriminately show its powers in every hand; it was necessary to have been born in certain months, and soft and warm—or, according to the modern expression, magnetic—fingers were indispensable for handling it with effect. The diviner possessing these necessary qualifications took hold of the rod by its branches so that the stem into which they united was directed upwards. On approaching the spot where the sought-for treasure lay concealed, the magical rod slowly turned towards it, until finally the stem had fully changed its position and pointed vertically downwards. To increase the solemnity of the scene, the wily conjurors generally traced magical circles that were not to be passed, burnt strong smelling herbs and spices, and uttered powerful charms to disarm the enmity of the evil spirits that were supposed to guard the hidden treasures.

At present, the divining-rod has lost its old reputation, and more rational means are employed for the discovery of mineral wealth. Relying on experience, tact, and geological knowledge, the investigator carefully examines the country where ores or coal are supposed to be concealed, and having fixed upon an appropriate spot, has recourse either to experimental digging or to boring for testing the truth of his opinion. These expensive explorations, though often unsuccessful, frequently prove highly remunerative, and many a saline spring, or coal seam, or metallic vein would, without their assistance, have remained unknown and unproductive.

Boring through hard stone is necessarily a very tedious work, but as it proceeds it awakens not only in those who are directly interested in its success, but in every intelligent witness, all the stirring emotions of a game of chance. ‘Of all branches of business,’ says Williams, a thoroughly devoted miner—‘of all the experiments that a man of sensibility can be engaged in, or attend to, there is, perhaps, none so amusing, so engaging, and delightful as a successful trial upon the vestigia, or appearances, of a seam of coal, or other mineral discoveries. When you are attending the people who are digging down or forward upon the vestige of the coal, and the indications are increasing and still growing better under your eye, the spirit of curiosity and attention is awakened, and all the powers of expectation are elevated in pleasing hopes of success. And when your wishes are at length actually fulfilled—when you have discovered a good coal of sufficient thickness, and all circumstances are favourable, the heart then triumphs with solid and satisfactory joy.'

In a mining country like England, where the spirit of enterprise is continually on the look-out for new sources of profit, it may naturally be supposed that searches for coal or metallic ore must be frequently undertaken. Thus in all our mining districts there are professional master-borers, who engage for a fixed price to drill the hardest rock to any depth that may be required.^[35] Their chief implements are boring-rods, made of the best and most tenacious Swedish iron; chisels fitted with screws, tipped with good steel, with a face of two and a half to three and a quarter inches, and generally eighteen inches in length; and a wimble, which is a hollow iron instrument like an auger, whose cavity is from six to ten inches in length, with an opening up at one side, with partial overlap, the better to receive and hold the chopped strata.

When the bore is intended to penetrate to a considerable depth, a lofty triangle of wood is set above the bore-hole. In boring, the lowermost rod is the chisel, which continually operates on the rock or stratum. The uppermost rod terminates in a stout ring, through which passes a cross-piece held by two men in working, and which is also suspended to a springing pole by a chain. One or more rods being pushed into the ground, two men on a wooden stage take hold of a cross stave at the end of the springing pole and work it steadily up and down, while two men below, by means of the cross-piece, at the same time heave the suspended rods a few inches, and then allow them to fall by their own weight, walking slowly round the hole. By these combined operations of chopping and scooping the workmen make slow but sure way through whatever substance may be in contact with the chisel. When the hole is too deep, and the added rods become too heavy to be conveniently lifted by manual labour, a brake or lever, or a horse-gin or steam-engine, is employed. As the boring proceeds, it is also frequently necessary to lower pipes into the hole made, to prevent the falling of fragments from the sides of the cylinder.

When the position of a mineral vein is ascertained, its direction known, and some reasonable conjecture made concerning its extent, thickness, and value, measures must be taken to obtain, by subterraneous excavation, the buried mineral, and for this purpose vertical pits or shafts must be sunk, and horizontal galleries, or, as they are sometimes called, levels, must be driven, to prepare the way for its convenient extraction, and at the same time to carry off, so far as may be, the water which either rises into the mine from springs, or drains into it from the surrounding strata. Some idea may be formed of the extent of these works in many of the more considerable mines, when we learn that the total amount of sinking in the Consolidated Mines in Cornwall is stated to amount to more than twelve miles of perpendicular depth (including, of course, the winzes or underground shafts), and that the horizontal galleries extend to as much as forty miles in length. A mine like this is, in fact, a large subterranean town, with numerous lanes and avenues, passages and thoroughfares.

In sinking a shaft, danger is to be apprehended both from the falling in of loose and incoherent strata, and from the lateral springs, which sometimes empty themselves into the workings to an extent which it would at first appear hopeless to contend against. In such cases there is no safety to be obtained without walling the shaft with brick or stone, or securing it by timber or metal tubbing. For this purpose many of our coal pits were formerly lined throughout with three-inch boards, nailed to a circular wooden framework called a crib, which was firmly attached to the sides of the pit at convenient distances. But this method, although it has been known to keep out a pressure of water equal to 100 pounds on the square inch, is not considered so safe as the metal tubbing now adopted in all difficult works. In comparatively solid ground the cast-iron tubs are forced down the shaft, but in soft ground they sink by their own weight. As they descend, fresh tubs are added, until the work is finished. When we consider that, in the coal-pits in the north of England, many shafts have a diameter of as much as fifteen feet, that in some cases they are sunk to a depth of nearly 300 fathoms, and that, under the most favourable circumstances, even where tubbing is not required to guard against the influx of springs, it is necessary to line almost the whole of the interior with bricks, to prevent the loose strata from falling or being washed in, we cannot wonder that as much as 100,000l. and ten years of labour have, in some cases, been expended before the seam of coal has been reached that was to repay all this vast outlay of capital and time. Unsightly and filthy as such a shaft may be, it is in reality a great triumph of architectural skill.

In most of our collieries one shaft serves for winding up the coal, for the passage of the men up and down, for ventilation, and for drainage by means of the engine-pumps. To answer these various purposes it is subdivided or bratticed by brick or wooden partitions into two, three, or four compartments; but this arrangement is very defective, for the safety of the workmen requires that in every large coal-pit, and indeed in every mine, there should be at least two separate shafts. When the partitions of the single shaft become injured or burnt, which has not unfrequently been the case, the ventilation of the pit may suddenly be deranged, and many lives have thus been endangered. The obstruction of a shaft by the breakage of an engine has caused some of the most appalling tragedies in mining history. On January 10, 1862, the beam of the pumping engine broke at the Hartley Colliery in the Newcastle coalfield, and striking, like a huge catapult, with its enormous weight of forty tons, against the sides of the shaft as it descended, accumulated an enormous mass of rubbish and broken timbers at the depth of 138 yards from the surface. Two hundred and four colliers were thus shut out from all hope of rescue, for no exertion could possibly remove, in time enough to save them, the vast pile of ruins that obstructed their escape to the upper world.

The methods of working, winning, or excavating mineral substances naturally vary, according to the magnitude and direction of the beds, lodes, or seams in which they are contained. With a vein of moderate width, as soon as the preparatory labours have brought the miners to the point of the vein from which the ulterior workings are to ramify, the first object is to divide the mass of ore into solid rectangular compartments by means of oblong galleries, generally pierced ten fathoms below one another, with pits of communication opened up, thirty, forty, or fifty yards asunder, which follow the slope of the vein. These galleries and shafts are usually of the same breadth as the vein, unless when it is very narrow, in which case it is necessary to cut out a portion of the roof or the floor. Such workings serve at once the purposes of mining, by affording a portion of ore, and for the complete investigation of the nature and riches of the vein, a certain extent of which is thus prepared before removing the cubical masses. It is proper to advance first of all in this manner to the greatest distance from the central point which can be mined with economy, and afterwards to remove the rectangular blocks in working back to that point. This latter operation may be carried on in two different ways, by attacking the ore from above or from below. In either case the excavations are disposed in steps, similar to a stair, upon their upper or under side. The first is styled a working in direct or descending steps; the second a working in reverse, or ascending steps. By this method a number of miners are able to proceed simultaneously without interfering with each other.

In rich lodes and in the case of thick masses, the system of working in large chambers or extensive excavations, or by transverse attacks, is employed. Superficial deposits are worked like open quarries.

In British practice, coal is generally worked on the post (or pillar and stall) system, or on the long-wall system.

The pillar and stall principle is carried out in the working away of a certain portion of the coal as a first measure, and in leaving the remainder in pillars, which are either to serve permanently for the support of the roof, or to be at some future time partially or totally removed. In the North of England, where this system has been brought to perfection, it is also named panel-work, because the whole area is divided into quadrangular panels, each panel containing an area of from eight to twelve acres, and round each panel is at first left a solid wall of coal of from forty to fifty yards thick. Through the panel walls roads and air-courses are driven in order to work the coal contained within these walls. Thus all the panels are connected together with the shaft as to roads and ventilation, and each district or panel has a particular name, so that any circumstance relating to the details of the colliery can be readily referred to a specified place.

By this plan, of which the above illustration gives a distinct idea, the pillars of a panel may be worked out at any time most suitable for the economy of the mine, and the loss of coal amounts to no more than about a tenth, instead of a third or a half by the old methods.

When the pillars of a panel are to be worked out, the most distant range is first attacked, and as the workmen cut away the furthest pillars, props of wood are placed between the pavement and the roof, within a few feet of each other, as shown by the dots at I. This is continued till an area of one hundred square yards is cleared of pillars. This operation is termed ‘working the goaf.’ The only use of the prop-wood is to prevent the stratum which forms the ceiling over the workmen’s heads from falling down and killing them by its splintery fragments. Experience has proved that before proceeding to take away another set of pillars, it is necessary to allow the last made goaf to fall. The workmen then begin to draw out the props. This is a most hazardous employment. Knocking down the more remote props one after another, they quickly retreat under the protection of the remaining props. Meanwhile the roof stratum begins to break by the sides of the pillars and falls down in immense pieces; while the workmen still persevere, boldly drawing and retreating till every prop is removed. Nay, should any props be so firmly fixed by the top pressure that they will not give way to the blows of heavy mauls, they are cut through with axes, the workmen making it a point of honour to leave not a single prop in the goaf. If any props are left, it causes an irregular subsidence of the strata, and throws more pressure on the adjacent pillars. The miners next proceed to cut away the pillars nearest to the sides of the goaf, setting prop-wood, then drawing it, and retreating as before, until every panel is removed excepting small portions of pillars which require to be left under dangerous stones, to protect the retreat of the workmen. While this operation is going forward and the goaf extending, the superincumbent strata, being exposed without support over a larger area, break progressively higher up; and when strong beds of sandstone are thus giving way, the noise of the rending rocks is very peculiar and terrific; at one time loud and sharp, at another hollow and deep. As the pillars of the panels are taken away, the panel walls are also worked progressively backwards to the pit-bottom, so that only a small portion of the coal is eventually lost.

When mines are fully worked, the main shaft is frequently continued down to other seams of coal, which are excavated in the same way as the first seam. In such cases the workings communicate with each other by shafts called ‘staples,’ which are sunk at intervals between the seams of coal.

The principle of long-wall working (Shropshire and Derbyshire method) is the extraction of all the available coal by the single process of first working, maintaining the roads by means of stone-walls or wooden props. This system is applicable with advantage only to thin seams which lie near to the surface, and in which the workings may be of a very limited extent.

According to the various hardness of the minerals or of the rocks in which they are embedded, different means and implements for dividing the masses are employed. In loose earth, sand, and clay, shovels and scrapers suffice; in gypsum, coal, and rock-salt, the pick becomes necessary; in many hard slates, gads must be driven into the small openings made with the point of the pick. In still harder stones, forming the great majority of those which occur in veins and strata, recourse must be had to the explosive power of gunpowder, which is also largely employed in our coal-mines. The tools used for this purpose are the borer, an iron bar tipped with steel, formed like a thick chisel, which is held by one man straight in the hole with constant rotation on its axis, while another strikes the head of it with the iron sledge or mallet; the scraper for clearing out the hole from time to time; the claying-bar, a tapering iron rod, which, after the introduction of some tenacious clay into the cavity, is forced into it with great violence, and, condensing the clay into all the crevices of the rock, secures the dryness of the hole; and the nail, a small taper rod of copper, which, after the charge has been introduced, is inserted to reach the bottom of the hole, which is now ready for tamping. For this purpose, any soft species of rock free from flinty particles, which might provoke a premature explosion, is introduced in small quantities at a time, and rammed very hard by the tamping bar, which is held steadily by one man and struck with a sledge by another. The hole being thus filled, the nail is withdrawn by putting a bar through its eye and striking it upwards. Thus a small perforation or vent is left for the safety fuse, a woven cylinder containing gunpowder, and protected by a coating of tar. The fire being applied, the men retire to a safe distance.

Often, in order to lose as little time as possible, a number of shots are fired together, so that the explosions, pouring out their tongues of flame in rapid succession, and awakening the subterranean echoes far and wide, afford a highly interesting spectacle. But woe to the miner if he be too hasty to return to his post, for it often happens that a treacherous shot goes off several minutes after being lighted, and, exploding in the face of the imprudent workman, disfigures him for life, or kills him on the spot.

Accidents in blasting arise also from other causes, such as a negligent handling of the powder while preparing the charge, or some delay in retiring after the fuse has been kindled. It was an incident of the latter kind which some years back called forth the following instance of heroism.

‘In a certain Cornish mine,’ says Thomas Carlyle,^[36] ‘two miners, deep down in the shaft, were engaged in putting in a shot for blasting; they had completed their affair, and were about to give the signal for being hoisted up. One at a time was all their coadjutor at the top could manage, and the second was to kindle the match and then mount with all speed. Now it chanced, while they were still below, one of them thought the match too long, tried to break it shorter, took a couple of stones, a flat and a sharp, to cut it shorter, did cut it off the due length, but, horrible to relate, kindled it at the same time, and both were still below. Both shouted vehemently to the coadjutor at the windlass, both sprang at the basket; the windlass-man could not move it with them both. Here was a moment for poor miner Jack and miner Will! Instant horrible death hangs over both, when Will generously resigns himself. “Go aloft, Jack, and sit down. Away! In one minute I shall be in heaven!” Jack bounds aloft, the explosion instantly follows, bruises his face as he looks over; he is safe above ground; and poor Will? Descending eagerly, they find poor Will, too, as if by miracle, buried under rocks which had arched themselves over him, and little injured; he too is brought up safe; and all ends joyfully, say the newspapers, which have duly specified the event.

‘Such a piece of manly promptitude and salutary human heroism was worth investigating. It was investigated and found to be accurate to the letter, with this addition and explanation, that Will Verran, an honest, ignorant, good man, entirely given up to Methodism, had been perfect in the “faith of assurance;” certain that he should get to heaven if he died, certain that Jack Roberts would not, which had been the ground of his decision in that great moment; for the rest that he much wished to learn reading and writing, and find some way of life above ground instead of below. By aid of the Misses Fox and the rest of that family, a subscription (modest Anti-Hudson Testimonial) was raised for this Methodist hero; he emerged into daylight with fifty pounds in his pocket; did strenuously try, for certain months, to learn reading and writing; found he could not learn those arts, or either of them; took his money and bought cows with it, wedding at the same time some likely milkmaid.’

Several attempts have recently been made to diminish the dangers of blasting, by substituting gun-cotton or nitroglycerine for gunpowder; or by firing charges by means of the electric battery, but hitherto without much success.

An enormous quantity of gunpowder is consumed for blasting in many of the larger mines. In 1836, 64,000 pounds were used in the Consolidated Mines in Cornwall, and 90,100 pounds in the Fowey Consolidated Copper Mines. The total amount of gunpowder consumed in the Cornish and Devonian Mines in the year 1837 reached 300 tons, which cost 13,200l. This one item may serve to give some idea of the enormous working expenses of a large mining concern.

Sometimes the rock is so tenacious as to render boring too tedious and expensive an operation, and fire becomes necessary for subduing the solidity of the stone. In this manner the ancient mine of Rammelsberg, near Goslar, is forced to yield its treasures, and whole forests are annually consumed in order to loosen the hornstone and indestructible spar of its metalliferous veins. Every Saturday morning the fire is applied to the numerous piles of billets and faggots that have been distributed throughout the course of the week. Those in the upper floors of exploitation are first burned, in order that the inferior piles may not obstruct by their vitiated air the combustion of the former. Thus at four o’clock in the morning the fires are kindled in the upper ranges, and then from pile to pile the firemen descend towards the lower floor, which occupies them till three o’clock in the afternoon. The vaults of Rammelsberg now afford a truly magnificent spectacle. The rising flames, flickering against the walls of the vaults, and ascending in broad sheets towards their roof; the dense clouds of smoke rolling towards the air vents; the crackling of the wood; the loud detonations of the stones rent by the expansive force of heat from the primitive rock; the lurid glare of the conflagration; the naked workmen with their mighty stirring-poles, flitting like dark spirits before the blazing pile; the intense heat, and the air loaded to suffocation with sulphurous fumes,—all combine to produce a picture worthy of Dante’s ‘Inferno.’ During the Sunday the noxious vapours engendered by the conflagration have time to disperse; and on the Monday morning the workmen detach, with long forks of iron, the ores that have been loosened by the flames.

The ore being extracted from its bed, it becomes necessary to bring it to the light of day, an operation which is of course of the greatest importance, and not seldom requires the aid of complicated machinery, particularly in coal mines, where large masses have to be conveyed as economically and speedily as possible to the upper world.

A great improvement has been effected of late years in the facility of transporting minerals underground, by the introduction of small tramroads, and the saving of expense thus effected sometimes amounts to one-half the former cost. Many of our larger mines are provided with miles of this subterranean railroad, and the advantage is greater, because for the most part there is a slight descent from the workings to the bottom of the shaft, to allow of a more complete system of drainage than could otherwise be attained. But frequently where the galleries are low, narrow, and crooked, the carriage is still effected by means of sledges, barrows, or little waggons, which are with difficulty dragged or pushed along, over planks or uneven and muddy roads; and sometimes even the interior transport of the ore is executed on the backs of men—a most disadvantageous practice, which is gradually wearing out.

In great mines, such as the coal and salt mines of Great Britain, the salt mines of Wielitzka, the copper mines of Fahlun, the lead mines of Alston Moor, horses have long been introduced into the workings, to drag heavier waggons, or a train of waggons attached to one another. In some cases these animals are brought to the surface at stated intervals, but generally when once let down the pit they for ever bid adieu to the light of day. Strange to say, this unnatural mode of existence, which would soon undermine the vigour and spirits of man, agrees admirably well with their health, of which the greatest care is taken, as their useful services are duly appreciated by their owners. They are abundantly fed with hay and oats of the best quality; their stalls are large and well ventilated; and as they labour in a mild and equable temperature, they remain free from many complaints to which horses are liable. Their good condition and sleek, shining coats prove that they have no sentimental longing for green fields or the bright sunshine. In a few of the largest collieries it has been found advantageous to establish underground stationary engines, which bring the trains of waggons, by means of an endless rope, along the galleries to the bottom of the shaft. In other mines, such as those of Worsley in Lancashire, subterranean canals are cut, upon which the mineral is transported in boats.

In the European mines, the ores are usually lifted from the bottom of the shaft to the surface by steam-power, or horse-gins; but in Spanish America, men, and even women, are employed for this purpose. The steep ladders which they ascend with heavy weights upon their backs, consist merely of the thick trunks of fir-trees, into which, at intervals of every ten or eleven inches, deep notches have been cut; but these rude steps are mounted with perfect security and ease by the sure-footed Indians.

In many European mines, where the workmen are let down or raised by means of ropes, wire cables, or chains, they sometimes sit on transverse round pieces of wood or in a kind of chair, consisting of two strong leather belts, one of which serves as a seat, and the other for supporting the back. In Wielitzka ten of these chairs are attached to the cable at distances of seven or eight feet one from another. The persons seated in the uppermost and lowest chairs direct the descent, and take great care to prevent the conveyance grazing against the sides of the shaft, for were it to be hooked fast by a nail or any other projection, a fall into a deep precipice of several hundred feet would be the almost inevitable and fatal consequence. The old method of descending into a colliery was by a corf or strong basket, hooked on by a chain to the rope that hung down the shaft. Stepping into this, the men would swing down the dark hollow, gaily and readily, but not always safely.

Thus, in the year 1835, in a colliery near LiÈge, seven workmen were already seated in a corf that was about to descend into the shaft, when one of their comrades, anxious to seize the opportunity, came hurrying along, and, in spite of all remonstrances, jumped into it; but the rope, unable to bear the shock and the increased weight, suddenly snapped, and all eight were precipitated into the abyss, from which not one of them came forth alive.

In the Swedish mines small barrels or tuns are generally used as vehicles of descent, and the workmen are uncommonly dexterous in preventing their little aËrial skiff from striking against the rugged rock-walls, when it would run the danger of being wrecked. Women, and even children, who find occupation in the mines, are often seen standing on the narrow edge of one of these swinging, turning, or oscillating tuns, with an arm slung round the rope; and such is the power of habit that they will quietly knit where even a stout-nerved man would be appalled by the frowning cliffs above or the black abyss below.

In the year 1785 a girl, descending alone into the pit of Fahlun, and unable to direct the tun, could not prevent it from striking against a rock. Jerked out of her conveyance by the violence of the shock, she fell upon a narrow ledge, about one hundred feet from the bottom of the pit, to which she clung with all the energy of despair. Her position was indeed terrific, for the least motion would have precipitated her into the dark grave which seemed to yawn for her reception, and to have given her but a momentary respite in order to make her feel more bitterly the pangs of approaching death. Already her strength was giving way, already a cloud swam before her eyes, when some bold miners, venturing their own lives in the hazardous undertaking, succeeded in rescuing her from her awful position, and snatching her as it were from the very jaws of death.

Another method much adopted, and preferred by the pitmen in our collieries, was passing down and up in the loop. The pitman inserted one leg into a loop formed by curving the terminal chain and hooking it back upon an upper link, and then twined his arm tightly round the rope above. In this way he descended through any depth, and, as he alleged, with greater safety than in a bucket, out of which he might be ejected, while nothing except the breaking of the rope could harm him in loop.

At present the safety-cage is generally used. This is simply a vertical railway carriage running down and up upon guides, and thereby introducing into the shaft the improvements of the iron road. Into one of its square narrow compartments two or three men crouch together, others get into an upper compartment, and down the cage moves easily and safely, the men needing only to take care that hands or fingers do not hang beyond the edge, while four or five minutes of easy motion carry them down a thousand or fifteen hundred feet below the surface of the earth.

In many mines the workmen climb up and down the shafts on fixed ladders, with landing-stages for resting; and it may easily be imagined how severely their strength must be taxed when, after their hard day’s labour, they have still to ascend step by step a thousand or even two thousand feet, before they can return to their families. Some of the Cornish mines require a full hour to rise from the lowest depths to ‘grass,’ and besides this considerable loss of time, diseases of the lungs and heart, which often terminate fatally, or prematurely make the miner an invalid, are the consequence of these fatiguing journeys.

‘O thou grumbling clerk in London city,’ exclaims the author of ‘Cornwall and its Mines,’^[37] ‘whose daily fatigues only extend to the ascent into and descent from the trim omnibus that takes you to or from Peckham or Kennington! Only think for a moment of travelling some four or five times the height of St. Paul’s daily—before and after work! O thou querulous socialist, demagogue, or artisan, who canst sit in a comfortable coffee-house, under a flaming gas-light, immediately before and after work—or in your own snug parlour, by your own fireside or murmuring kettle—do but think for a moment of the Cornish miner, and what he must do before he can reach home or house! I fully believe that the best cure for discontent and gloom in fortunate workmen would be to put them upon the treadmill of a deep Cornish mine—for a temporary treadmill it is.’

It had long been deemed of the utmost importance to devise some easier mode of locomotion; but it was not till 1833 that the circumstance of two water-wheels having been thrown out of work by the opening of the deep Georg Adit in the Hartz mines suggested the idea of employing the pump-rods for aiding the ascent of the miners. The trial was first made with a portion of one hundred fathoms. This was divided into twenty-two portions; and on each portion iron steps were fixed, at intervals of four feet, while hand-holds were fixed at convenient distances. A reciprocating motion of four feet was given to each rod, and the miners stepped to and fro from a bracket or ledge on one rod to the parallel one on the other. As one rod is always descending while the other is ascending, and vice versÂ, it is easy to understand how this alternate stepping on to the little platforms must lead to the ascent or descent of the miner. At the division between each two of the twenty-two portions, there is a larger platform on which he may rest awhile; and nothing is lost by his rest, for the reciprocal motion goes on, and is ready again for his use when he is ready for it. This first machine surpassed expectation. Short as the length of ascent was, many invalids of the district were now able to resume their underground labours, as the fatigue of mounting or descending was reduced, by the alternate action of the machinery, to a mere easy lateral motion.

The advantages of this new method in saving both time and power were so obvious that it was soon imitated in the other deep metalliferous veins of the Hartz; and at present power-ladders or man-engines of an improved construction, such as the substitution of a single rod for the double apparatus above described, are in very general use over the Continent, whence they have passed in a modified form into Cornwall, where they are worked by steam. In Fowey Consols Mine the machine extends to a depth of 1,680 feet. The rod is eight inches square, with twelve-inch platforms at intervals of twelve feet; and there are stationary platforms equidistant at the side of the shaft. When a miner is about to descend the steps on a movable platform, the rod descends and carries him down twelve feet; he steps upon a fixed platform while the rod rises again; he then steps upon another movable platform, and descends another twelve feet, and so on to the bottom. In ascending, there is simply a reversed process. It is a very interesting sight to witness the ascent or descent of bodies of miners at certain hours of the day and night. You see them passing each other in the shafts, in a kind of zig-zag course, of as great regularity as any zig-zag will permit. As one miner steps off the rod platform to one fixed platform, another steps on to it from another fixed platform on the other side. Thus there are two streams of miners moving in opposite directions along the same rod at the same time, and this curious spectacle is rendered doubly pleasing when we consider how much distressing toil has been alleviated by the employment of the man-engine. Machinery constructed on the same principle has been latterly adopted in the mines of Anzin, for transporting the coal step by step to the surface; and it is evident that when coal mines are worked at greater depths than at present, ropes, however strong, will no longer be able to sustain even their own weight, and the whole transport up and down a shaft of perhaps 3,000 or 3,500 feet must be performed by means of similar machines.

TIMBERING OF A MINE.