The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-05-16

MINE UNDER THE SEA.-1he following de-
scription of a visit to Bottallack COPPER mine,
in England, is from work recently published,
entitled Rambles beyond Railroads." In CON-
plete mining equipment with candles stuck by
Jumps of clay to their felt hats, the travellers
have painfully descended by perpendicular lad
ders and along drippingwet rock passages faith
oms down into pitch dark ess The miner who
guides them calls halt and their exact position
with reference TO the surface Of the 'terrague-
Gus globe" is thus described:
We are now four hundred yards out, under
the bolton 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 deeper yet, even
below that The extraordinary position down
the face Of the cliff Of the engines and other
works on the surface at Bottalack is now ex-
planned The mine is not excavated like other
mines under the land, but under the sea.
Having communicated these particulars, the
miner next tells us to keep strict silence and
listen We obey him, sitting speechess and
motionless. If the reader could only have be-
held us now, dressed in our copper-coored gar
ments, hudded close together in mere cleft of
subterraneous rock, with flames burning on our
he DIS and darkness enveloping our limbs, he
lent stretch of fancy, that he was looking down
upon concave of gnomes.
After listening for few moments, distant,
unearthly noise becomes fain ly audible long,
low, mysterious moaning that never changes
that is felt on the ear well as heard by it--s
sound that might proceed from some incalcula-
bic distance-from some far, invisible height
a sound unlike anything that is heard on the
upper ground, in the free mir of heaven--a sound
SO sublimely mournfnl, and still so ghostly and
impressive, when listened to in the subterrnnean
recesses OF the earth, that we continue instinc-
lively to hold our peace, ns If enchanted by it,
and think not Of communicating to each other
the strange feeling and astonishnent which it
has inspired in us both from the first.
At Inst the miner speaks again, and tells us
that what we hear is the sound of the surf lash
ing the rocks hundred and twenty feet above
US, and of the waves that are breaking on the
beach beyond. The tide is now ut the flow and
the sea is in extrao rdinary state of agitation
80 the sound is low and distant just at this PEE
Rod. But when storms are at their height, when
the ocean hurls mountains after mountains of
water on the cliffs, then the noise is terrific the
~Aing heard down here in the mine is 40 mex
press'bly fierce and awful, that the boldest men
at work are afraid to continue their labor--all
ascend to the surface to breathe the upper air
and stand on the firm earth--dreadina, 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 get up to look at the rock
above us. We are able to stand upright in the
position we now occupy, and, haring our candles
hither and thther in the darkness, can see tbo
bright, pure copper streaking the gallery In
every direction. Lumps Of coxe of the most
lustrous green color, trave-sed 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 incessantly io
certain places. This is the salt water percolat-
ing through invisible cranntes IN the rock. On
stormy days It spurts out furiously in thin, con-
tnuous streams Just over our heads we OBJ
serve wooden plug ofthe thickness Of mans
leg; there Is hole here, and the plug is all that
we have TO keep out the SEES,