Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1851-06-30
A Mine under the Sea.

- d fes
The following description of a visit to
Bottallack copper mine, in England, is from
q work recently published, entitled Rams
bles beyond Railroads. In complete min.
ing equipment, with candles stuck by
Jumps Of clay to their felt hats. the truv-
elers have painfully descended by perpen.
dicular ladders and along dripping-wet
rock passages fathoms down into pi,chy
darkness. The miner who guides them
calls halt; and their exact position with
reference to the surface Of the terraqueos
globe, is thus described: a ;;,
tWe are now four hundred yards out,
under the bottom of the sea, and twenty
fathoms, or hundred and twenty feet, be,
low the sea level. Coast>trade vessels are
sailing over our heads. Two hundred and
forty ice. 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 Bottaliack Is
now explained. The mine is not excavat-
ed like other mines, under the land, but
under the sea. .--ss.ss e
the miner next tells US 10 keep strict silence
and listen. We obeyed hln, sitting speech.
less and po,ionless. If the render could
only have beheld US now, dressed in our
copper colored garments, huddled close to,
gelber in mere cleft Of subterranean rock,
with a fame burning on our heads, and
darkness enveloping our limbs, he must
certainly have magined, with any violent
stretch Of fancy, tha, he was looking down
upon conclave Of gnomes. -. i.
after listening for few moments, a
distant, unearthly noise becomes family
audible-a long, low, mysterious moaning
that never changes, that is LEFT on the ear
as wetl as heard by it--a sound ,ha. might
proceed from some incalculable distance,
from some far, invisible height-a sound
unlike anything that is heard on the upper
ground, in the free air oi heaven-a sound
so sublimely mournful, and still so ghoslly
and impressive, when listened to in the sub.
terranean recesses Of the earth, that we
continued ins,inctively to hold our peace,
as if enchanted by it, and think not Of
communicating to each other the strange;
spired in US both from the FIRST. o45+
.At last the miner speaks again, and tells
US that what we hear is the surf lashing the
rocks hundred and twenty feet above US
and of the waves that are breaking on the
beach beyond. Thetide is now at the How,
and the sea is in no extraordinary state Of
agitation; so the sound is low and distant
Just at this period. Blu, when storms are
ai their height; when the ccean hurls
mountain after mountain Of water on the
cliffs, then the noise is terrific; the roaring
heard down here in the mine is so inexpress.
ibly 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
dreading, though no catastrophy has ever
happened yet, that the SEA will break in on
them il they remain in'the cavern below.
Hearing this we got up TO look at the
rock above us. We are able to stand up.
right in the position we now occupy, and,
fiaring our candles hilher and tither in the
darkness can see the bright, puro copper
streaking the gallery in every direction.
Lumps Of ooze Of the most lustrious green
color, trayersed by natural network of
thin red veins of iron, appear here and
therein large irregular patches, over which
water is dropping slowly and necessarily
in certain places. This is the salt water
percolating through invisible crnnnies in
the rock. On stormy days 1t spirits out
furiously in thin continuous slreams.-
just over our heads we observe q wooden
plug ofthe thickness Of o mans leg, there
is a hole here, and the plug is oil 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 remains, and vii! al-
ways remain untouched; the miners dare
not take it, for it is part, and great part,
Of the rock which forms their only prolec.
ton against the seq, and which has been
so far 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 knows what
might be the consequence Of another days
labor with the pickaxe on any part oi IL
A coquette at ball asked gentleman
who was adjusting her tucker, if he could