Washington telegraph., 1851-05-28

A NINE UNDER TIE SEA.-The following de-
scripiion of a visit to Boltallack Copper Mine, in
England, is from work recently published, en-
titled ''Rambles beyond Railroads" In complete
mining equipment, with candles stuck, by Jumps
of clay, their felt hats, the travellers have pain
fully descended. by perpendicular ladders and
along dripping wet rock passages, fathoms down
into pitchy darkness, the miner who guides them
calls halt, and their exact position with refer
ence to the surface Of the ''terraqueous globe" is
thus described:
1--WE are now four hundred yards out, under
the bcttom of the sea! and twenty fathoms,
hundred and twenty feet below the sea level.
Coast trade vessels are sailing over our heads.
Two handred and forty feet beneath u.en ure
at work, and there galleries deeper yet, even
below that! The extraordinary position down the
face Of the cliff, Of the engines aud other works
on the surface, at Rottaac91, is now explained.
The mine is not excayated like other mines, under
the land, but under the sea-"
Having communicated these particulars, the
miner tells to keep strict silence and listen.
We obey him, sitting speechless and motioness.
If the reader could only have beheId us now,
dressed IN our copper coIored garments, hudded
close together in mere cleft OF subterraIean rock,
with Game burning on our heads and darkness
envelopng our limbs--he must certainly have ina
gined, without any violent stretch OF fancy. that
he was looking down upon conclave OF gnomes
After listening for few moments, distant, un-
earthly noise becomes family audible-a long, low,
mysterious moaning, that neve" changes-that is
felt on the ear as well heard by it-s sound that
might proceed from some incaiculahle distance -
from some far, invisible heIght-a sound unlike
anything that is heard on the upper ground, in the
free air of Heaven-a sound so sublinlely mournlul
and still, so ghosly and impressive, when listened
TO in the sublerranean Of the earth, that
we continue, instinctively to hold our peace, as
enchanted by it, and think not of communicating
to each other the strange feeling and astonishment
which it has inspired 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 lashIng the
rocks hundred and twenty feet above us, and Ot
the waves that are breaking on the beach beyond.
The tide is now at the flow, and the sea is in no
extraordinary state of agitat.on; SO the sound IS
low and distant just at this period. Bot when
storms are at their height, when the oceau hurls
mountain after mountain Of water on the cliffs,
then the noise is terrific; the roaring heard down
here in the mines is SO inexpressbly fierce and
awful, that the boldest men at work afraid to
continue their labor-a end to the surface TO
breathe the upper air and stand on the trm earth;
dreading though no catastrophe as ever happened
vet, that the sea will break in them if they
main in the cavern below
Hearipg this we got up to look at the rock above
u.s. We are able to stand upright in the position
thther in the darkness, can see the bright, pure
copper streaking the gallery in every direction.
Lumps Of ooZe, of the most ustrous green color,
traversed BY natural network of ti,,n red veins
of iron, APPEAR here and there in iarge IRE gular
patches, over which water is dripping slowly and
necessarily in certain places. Tins is the salt
water precolatng through invisible crannies IN the
rock. On stormy days it spurts out furlously in
thin continuous streams. Just over our heads we
observe a wooden plug of the thick ness of a mans
leg; there is hole here, and the plug is all that
we have to keep out the sea.
Immense wealth of metal is contained IN the
roof Of this gallery, throughout its whole length;
but it REM aims, aud will alwarys remain, untouch-
ed; the miners dare not take it for it is part, and
a great part Of the rock WHICH forms their only
protection against the sea, and which has been SO
Tar worked away here, that its thickness is limited
to an average Of three feet only between the water
and the gallery in which we now stand. NO one
kno VS. what might be the consequences oil another
days labor with the pckase Oh amy part oi It,
SHORT DREssEs-The Syracuse STAN