Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-01-16
BY THE OLD OPENING.
The Risk Tony Took in Returning
the Lost Diamond.

the LOST DIAMOND.
Not very long ago there lived in the
beautiful Wyoming Valley in Pennsyl-
vania boy named Tony Tamlyn, or,
rather. he lived at the head of a great
rayine. which cut its way down into the
valley through steep mountains.
The house in which Tony lived was
little one-story cabin of two rooms, one
of them with little in it besides cook
stove and table, the other with nothing
in it except two beds. Perhaps l ought
to say that this was the house that the
boy ate and slept in, for he liced out of
doors, and so did his sister Apollonia,
except when she was needed to help her
mother.
In the gray, rocky bottom of the "a
vine ran a fierce little white brook that
never had time to make itself deep, but
foamed and frOthed and sputtered all the
way down to the valley.
On the right rose one wall of the ra-
vine, sloping little, and richly green
with hemlock, and on the left very
strange sight indeed, ''straight-up"
wall of yellowish rock about fifty feet
high. chequered with a row of ten great
black squares. These squares are great
openings high enough to serve as door
WAYS for the tallest giants, and if you step
inside your feet will fall upon a solid,
fat almost smooth black floor extending
back many hundreds of feet, and disap-
bearing into the blacklist darkness. If
YOU look up there is a smooth, shiny
black ceiling, and supporting this Won
derful ceiling at wide intervals, are
enormous black pillars twenty-five feet
in circumference, spreading out little
rs they touch the roof full fifteen feet
above your head.
If YOU will look closely, you will see
that not only are floors, ceilings and
pillars all of one material. but they are
also actually in one piece. The material
is coal, and the openings are the en-
trance to a long wOrked-Out coal mine.
If you were to go to-day to visit a
modern working coal mine, the only
part YOU could see above ground would
be the breaker. a huge, wooden struc-
ture containing machinery for hauling
up and breaking the coal, and you would
have to 90 into the earth some hundreds
OF feet. by means of an elevator. to find
the place where the coal comes from.
But many years ago, when people first
began to look for coal, they often found
it cropping out" at the surface, and at
this particular spot where Tony and
"Ap'' lived, there cropped out one Of the
largest veins of coal ever fOund-twenty-
~ Nh 20
this rocky hill was all dug out and
turned into an anthracite palace.
Over on the other side of the hill was
a new. vertical opening or shaft" and
every morning TOny's father, who was
miner, went down the ravine and
around the base of the hill-a distance
of a mile and a half-to his work; but
there was a much shorter way if one
chose to take it, and that was through
the 'old opening"
Following the long-deserted gang
WAYS" for quarter of mile or so, you
would come out upon the great smutty
breaker, with its roar, and its dust, anC
its culm-pile. However, this was re
garded as a dangerous thing to do, anC
the children were told repeatedly nevel
to attempt it, but this caution was hardl!
necessary, for if ever they ventured bacl
among the dark pillars, the blacknes
was so dense, and the feeling of damp
ness so unpleasant, that they were glaC
enough to run into the sunlight again
All in and about the great doorway
of the old opening, and among the ston
chips of the slippery ledge outside, wer
found pieces containing impressions
of ferns and other leaves that had flour
ished green and fresh many years be
fore. and diving. had left their sculptures
portraits upon the rocks.
There were also other pieces covere'
with what might be thought the mold
in which dainty fluted sea-shells ha
been cast. Again there would come I
light small sections of tree-stems, pith
wood and bark all turned to stone.
Inside were other strange and beauti
full things; chunks of coal coated wit
sulphur, that looked almost as if the
were crusted with gold-other chunk
covered with what seemed like bul
nished points of steel-and most beauti
full of all, slabs of rainbow" coal, wit
their colors playing into each other a
perfectly as on any peacock's tail, an
almost making one believe that the fir:
bow which God set in the heavens mu:
been somehow preserved in the bowe
of the earth, like the shells and ferI
and flowers, for future ages to see an
enjoy.
Tony and his sister spent hours lool
ing for these fossils, and one corner
their bedroom was piled up with CO
lection that would have delighted Il
hearts of biologists or curiosity-hunter
Many such curiosity-hunters came
the old opening every summer-ca
riage-loads of them-gaily dressed, al
the two children were always on haI
when they heard the roll of vince
coming up the narrow road of the ravin
for the tourists always wanted fossil