The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-05-02

MINING UNDER THE SEA. Mining can
hardly be pleasant occupation. The alb
sence of sun and all natural light, the drip
ping side of the shaft, the danger Of explo-
sion from the fire-damp, of the fall Of jut-
ting rocks and numerous other perils, in
est it with vague terrors to active imagin-
ations. But when the shafts run under the
sea, and the swell of the ocean is distinctly
audible, it must suggest many fears to the
diligent miners. The following graphic
description is taken from an English paper:
We are now four hundred yards out un-
der the bottom Of the sea, and twenty feet
below the sea level. Coast-trade vessels
are sailing over our heads. Two hundred
and forty feet below us men are at work
and there are galleries yet below that. The
extraordinary position down the face of the
cliff, of the engines and other works on the
surface, at BOttallie, is now explained. The
mineis not excavated like other mines I'M
der the earth, but under the sea. Having
communicated these particulars, the miner
tells us to keep silence and listen. We obey
him, sitting speechless and motionless. If
the readers could only have beheld us now,
dressed in our copper colored garments,
huddled close together in mere cleft of
subterranean rock, with a flame burning
on our heads and darkness enveloping our
limbs, he must certainly have imagined
without any violent strength of fancy, that
he was looking down upon conclave of
gnomes. a.
After listening a few minutes distant
and unearthly sound becomes family audi
ble-a long, low, mysterious moaning that
never changes, that is full on the ear as
well as heard by it, a sound that might pro-
ceed from some incalculable distance from
some far invisible hight-a sound unlike
anything that is heard on the upper ground
in the free air Of heaven-a sound sublime
ly mournful and still so ghostly and i'm
w iSfn TO- hi,
can recesses of the earth, that we continue
instinctively to hold our peace as if en-
chanted by it, and think not of communi-
eating to each other the strange awe and
establishment which it has inspired in us
from the very 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 twen-
ty feet above us and of the waves that are
breaking on the beach beyond. The tide
is now at the flow, and the sea is in no ex-
traordinary STATE of agitation, so the sound
is low and distant just at this period. But
when storms are at their hight, when the
ocean hurls mountain after mountain of
water on the cliffs, then the noise is terrific;
the roaring heard down here in the mine is
so lnexpressibly fierce and awful that the
boldest men at work are afraid to continue
their labor; all ascends to the surface to
breathe the upper air and stand on firm
chItu Observation-Disclosures no caCaStrODne mas
ever happened yet-that the sea will break
in on them if they remain in the cavern be-
low.
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
haring our candles hither and thither in
the darkness, can see the bright, pure cop
per streaming through the gallery in every
direction. Jumps of ooze, Of the most
lustrous green color, traversed by natural
net work of thin, red vein of iron, appear
here and there in large irregular patches,
over which water is dripping slowly and
necessarily in certain places This is the
salt water percolating through invisible
crannies in the rock. On stormy days it
spurts out furiously in thin continuous
streams. Just over our heads we observe
a wooden plug, of the thickness Of mans
leg; there is a hole there, and that plug is all
we have to keep out the sea.
Immense wealth of metal is contained in
the roofs Of this gallery throughout its en-
tire length, but it will always remain I'M
touched; the miners dare not take it, for it,
is a part land great part) Of the rock which
is their only protection against the sea, 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. mol
one knows what might be the consequent
ces of another days labor with the pickaxe
on any part of it.
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