Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1851-05-30
A Mine under the Sea.

The following description of visit to Botta.
lack copper mine, in Eng land is from work
recently published, 'Rambles beyond Railroads.
In complete mining equipment, with candles
stuck by lnmps of clay to their felt hats the tray
elers have painfully descended by perpendicular
ladders and along dripping-wet rock passages,
fathoms down into ptchy darkness the miner
| who guides them calls hall, and their exact po-
sitl"n with reference TO the surface of the sierra
queous globe" is thus described
We are now four hundred yards ont. under
the bottom of the sea and twenty fathoms, or
hundred and twenty feet below the sea level
Coast-trade vessels are sailing over our heads
Two hundred and forty feet beneath us men are
at work, and there are galleries even below
that. The extraordinary position down the
tace OF the cliff, of the engines and other works
on the surface, at Bottallack, is now explained
The mine Is not eXcavated like other mines I'M
der the land, but under the sea.
Having communicated these particulars the
miner next tells us to keep strict silence and lis
ten. We obey him, sitting speeches. and mo-
tlonless. If the reader could only have beheld
US now, dressed in our copper-colored garments,
hudaed close together in a mere cleft Of subter-
ranean rock, with flame burning on our heads
and darkness enveloping our linbs-he must
certainly have imagined without any violent
stretch OF fancy, that he was looking down up
on conclave OF gnomes.
After listening few moments, distant I'M
earthly noise becomes family audiblc--a long,
low, mysterious moaning, that never changes
that is felt on the ear as well a. heard by ia
sound that might proceed from incacuable dis
tance-trom some far invisible height-a sound
unlike anything that is heard on the upper
ground in the free air of heaven-a sound so sub
lImplv IDourpfu mud On i,pDrnSSiyo ,.,hop Estop
ed to in the subterranean recesses of the earth,
that we continue instinctivey to hold our peace,
fenchanted by it. & think not of commun eating
10 each other the establishment which it has in
spired in us both from the first
AT last the miner speaks again, and tells US
that what we hear is the sound of the surf lash
ing the rocks a hundred and twenty feet above
us, and of the waves that are breaking on the
beach. The tide is now at its flow, aud the sea
Is in no extraordinary state of agitation; SO the
sound Is low and distinct just at this period. But
when storms are at their height, when the ocean
hurls mountain after mountain of water on the
cliffs, then is the noise terrific the roaring heard
down here in the mine is so ineXpressibe fierce
and awful that the boldest men at work are a.
frad to continue their labor-all ascend to the
surface to breathe the upper air and stand on
the firm earth: dreading, though no catastrophe
has ever happened yet, that the sea Will break IN
on them if they remain in the cavern below.
Hearing this, we got up to look at the rock
above US. We are able to stand upright in the
position we now occupy; and haring our can
dies hither and thither in the darkness, can see
the bright pure copper streaking the gallery in
every direction. Lumps of Dose, in the most
lustrous.green color, traversed by natural net
work of thin red veins of iron, appear here and
there in large, irregular patches, over which
water is dripping slowly and necessarily to GER
tain place. This is the salt water percolating
through invisible crannies in the rock. On stor-
my days it spurts out turiously in thin contin-
uous streams. just over our heads we observe
a wooden plug, of the thickness ola mans leg
there is hole here and the plug is all that
we have to keep out the sea.
Immense wealth of mineral is contained in
the roof of this gallery, throughout its whole
length; but it remains, and will always remain
untouched; the miners dare not take it, for it is
part, and great part OF the rock which forms
their own protection against the sea, and which
has been so far worked away that Its thickness
is limited TO an average of three feet only be-
tween the water and the gallery in which we now
stand. No one knows what might be the con-
sequence of another days labor with the pick
axe on any part of it.