The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1910-03-03
s'' BENEATH GROUND.
In a British Columbia Gold Mine.

VI brltish Columbia Gold Mine.
When the manager OF gold mine
at Rossland offered to take us down
we accepted readily, and it was only
when we were invited to step in,
that we thought of the light summer
SUITS which most of us were wearing.
We had left the boat at .,obson and
come on to itossland to learn some
thing OF that vast mineral wealth up
on which, with lumber and fisheries
and fruit growing, the commercial and
Industrial future of British Columbia
Is to be built. At the Centre Star tho
slant of the shaft is one of about 80
degrees and the body of the skip slopes
back to the rails upon which 1t falls
into the depths. Which means that
when the eight Of us are PACKED tight
ly in the innocents who nave entered
first find themselves tilted on their
heels, their backs upon the cold. wet,
rusty iron, and held fast Uy the oy-
erlying strata Of human avoirdupois
which fills the skip.
1t was at the third floor window
that the man stood who heard the OPP
tlmist, hurrying by on his long fall
from the roof of the twenty story
/ skyscraper, muimur to himself that it
was "All rigu, so far It is at about
that stage OF his downward journey,
probably. that the man who dcscenus
a mine for the first time begans TO
take the cheerful view. His earlier
mind Is complex. elusive and difficult
Of analysis, but at any rate it is not
/ cheerful Sudden backest darkness;
| the feeling of falling out of ones hair;
the whirlng cable that may snap;
the engine man who may lose control;
/ an upward glanciug of the soul TO all
Defending Powers; and then obliviCl
an oblivion cloven as it were IN
| past the openings one below the 9th
er, Of the dimly lit galleries at deep
/ or and deeper Levels. The skip slack
| ems speed, hoyers hesitatingly f-r a
moment and then comes to sand
and we step out
"You'll want candies. sGyI the
manager, and on the threshold of this
new world we light them propitLator-
/ lily, as upon an altar, 1t Is world or
/ gray The walls before us and the
| roof above, upheld by huge timberng,
/ are gray, relieved only at nearer
/ view by the simmer Of the imprison-
! ed metals The galleries that extend
to right and left the cars which pass
us laden and the men who bend be-
| hind them are gray as the ore which
they dump between the rails into
chamber below. The electric lamps
which line the roofs Of the galleries
burn gray, as it seems, and the very
air is gray. On the mountain above
the sun is shining, and thank God
for the green world that one can look
upon thence.
"Ollabod!" cries our guide Obedi-
emily we Chamber into the little sqSare
trucks which have been brought up
in row to carry us through the
mine Each man has his truck, rides
alone upon his own plank and lights
himself with his own particular can
die.
III a moment we are in the gallery
As we meet the sharp current of air
the hot wax cutters over onto our fin
gers and we slant the candles back to
the horizontal.
At the end of long gallery, where
second shaft descends, we cllmb out,
penetrate a gloomy, narrow passage
in which heaps of ore lie waiting to
be trucked away and croucnlng enter
from below a little chamber some
by s feet, blasted in the rock.
Here. where the air is still full OF
the odor of geignite, Is a driller at
work with his machine. We squeeze
ourselves fiat and bend low against
the sloplng walls and watch.
The heavy iron arm shoots out and
in, striking the face Of the rock full
square perhaps fifty times minute,
every blow falling with the weight
of / 900 pounds, twisting as it strikes
as If to bore through what it cannot
break away. The man behind the
drill turns on us an impassive face.
No one speaks or would be heard for
the echoes of the thrust and thud and
the vibration Of the machine. we
wander that beneath such blows and
amid such din the sleeping masters OF
gray underworld should not awake
and bring the foundations down up
on MS.
At the bottom of the shaft we wait
while the men of the night shift flash
by US, skip after skip, to tneir WORK
in the lower depths, and then we
are drawn out of the void as we came.
London Daily News.