Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1858-09-16
A Visit to the Cliff Mine.

\
Tho following accurate and interesting de.
scriptiou to the famous Cliff Copper Mine VIC
| take from recent correspondence OF the A.
bany Journal: H. -..
The FIRST sight of the Cliff Nine surprises
you. At a foot of bluff some FIVE hunnred
feet in height is built up in the midst of woods.
n considerable village. Neat houses to the
number of hundred, strangely similar ia size
and shape, and large enough TO admit two
families each, cover the sandy clearing: Here
rises church spire there the smoke pipes OF
the mining engines. The whole village o!
some thousand inhabitants belongs to the Cliff
Copper Company, aid has deem built by them
for their FIVE hundred miners and their families.
Everything indicates order, system and thrift,
The president informed us that the company
had then in their hands some $50 600 OF wages
saved by the miners, aud left with them for
safe keeping. The workshops of the mine, sit
uated above ground are full of interest. Here
some six or seven steam engnes-the largest
$50 horse power--are employed in drawing
the buckets of earth and copper mp the shafts
in stamping the rock in which the copper is
for the most part found, and in the various op-
erations of the mine By these means ,64O
tops of copper were raised and prepared for
market il the year 1851, of which 66 per cent
was in pure solid masses The annual expen-
scs of the mine amonnt to nearly $250,000-
Shafts are already sunk to the depth Of 500
feet below the foot Of the cliff, or 900 feet be
low its summit, where two of the shafts have
their opening into the upper air The sinking
of these shafts is work of immense labor and
expense, and though the company has been, Oh
the whole, so successful, it has thrown away
half n million of dollars in the unsuccessful
sinking of single shaft.
We finished our inspection BY descent into
the bowels of the earth. We arrayed our
selves in miners Shirts pants, coats and boots.
and put wooden caps on our heads, TO the
front of which were affixed tallow candles,
fastened by piece of moist clay. No ragged
Irishman | imagined ever looked haf so CON-
iCal as we, every mans head shining like a
travelling lighthouse We squeezed ourselves
through hole in the ground, and descended
as into well, the space of seven ladder lengths
making in all some three hundred feet The
( damp black rock trckled with water the air
was cold, and unutterabe blackness stared at
rs before and behind From the bottom OF
the ladder We followed our guides through q
low passage-way cut in solid rock, now and
then eyeing some fearful chasm, or clambering
down some rocky gorge, till We reached the
wonderful mass of pure copper which.has been
lately discovered, aud on which the miners
were engaged. This mass is estimated to
weigh some one hundred and City TONS and
to be worth from fifty to seyenty-Gye thousand
dollars. A dozen kegs of powder were the
other day put under it and fred without effect
ing its separation from the adjacent rock
Twenty-siX kegs were then tried with but par
tial success, one cnd being still Ieft hanging
to the rock The blast shook the mountain,
I however. and demonstrated, at least, the use
of gunpowdeG. Some four months will be re-
quired to gut up the mass into pieces which
can be raised to the surface.
Silver is also found mingled with the copper
although the miners are said TO pocket the
greater part of it. One of them is said to
have sold in Detroit silver to the amount Of
! $500 which from time to time he had secured
The temptation is strong, the work is hard for
! it is carried on by night as well as by day, and
the wages of the mincrs are not greatly above
the wages Of common laborerS, being, on an
average ten shings per day.