Fayetteville observer. [volume] (Fayetteville, Tenn.) 1850-1966, 1866-03-01
Mining Under the Sea.

Mining can hardly be a plcasar
occupation. The absence of su
t and all nateral light, the drippin
!, sides of the shaft, and danger o
explosion from the fredamp, O.
jutting rocks and numerous othe
perils, invest it with vague terror
toactive imaginations. But whel
the shafts run under the sea, ant
the swell of the ocean is distinctl7
audible, it must suggest many fear
to the diligent miners. The fol
lowing graphic description is from
a recent traveller:
We are now four hundred yards
out under the bottom of the sea,
and twenty feet below the level.
Coast trade vessels are sailing over
our heads. Two hundred and tor
ty feet below us men are at work,
and there are galleries yet below
that. TheeXtraordinary position,
down to the face of the cliff, of
the engines and other works on
the surface, at Bottallie, is now ex-
planned. The mine is not exca-
waited like other mines, under the
earth, but under the sea. Hav-
ing communicated these particu-
lars, the miner tells US to keep ST.
lence and listen We obey him,
sitting speechless and motionless.
If the reader could only have be-
held us now, dressed in our cop.
per-colored garments, huddled
close together in a mere cleft of
subterranean rock, with fame
burning on our heads, and dark
ness enveloping our limbs, he must
certainly have imagined, without
any violent stretch of fancy, that
he was looking down upon con-
clave of gnomes.
After listening a few minutes,
a distant and unearthly sound be-
comes family audible-a long,
low, mysterious moaning, that
never changes, that is full on the
ear as well as heard by it, a sound
that might proceed from incalcula-
BILE distances-from some far invis-
ible height, a sound unlike any
thing that is heard on the upper
ground in the free air of heaven
"a sound so sublimely mournful
and still SO ghostly and impressive
when listened to in the subterra-
mean recesses Of the earth, that
we continue instinctively to hold
our peace as if enchanted by it,
and think not of communicating
to each other the strange awe and
astonishment 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 twenty 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 extraordinary
state Of agitation, SO the sound is
low and distant just at this period.
But when storms are at their
when the ocean hurls
mountain after mountain of water
on the cliffs, then the noise is ter
rife; the roaring heard down here
in the mine is so inexpressively
fierce and awful that the boldest
men at work are afraid to continue
their labor; all ascend to the sur
face to breathe the upper air, and
stand on firm earth, dreading-
though no catastrophe has ever
yet-that the sea will
break in upon them if they re-
main in the cavern below.
Hearing this, we got up to look
at the rocks above us. We are
able to stand upright in the posi-
lion we now occupy; and faring
our candles hither and thither in
the darkness, can see the1bright,
pure copper streaming through the
gallery in every direction. Lumps /
IF ooze of the most lustrouS green .
color, traversed by a natural net !
work of thin, red veins of iron, |
appear here and there in large ir- !
regular patches, over which water I
IS dripping slowly and incessantly
IN certain places. This is the salt
water percolating through invisi- ]