The weekly Alaska citizen., 1918-01-14

term mining" does not mean merely the hunt for minerals. Quarrying, tunneling, excavating, drainage en. gineering, are all mining. operations in the bigger sense of the term. Strange as 1t may seem, few years ago when so many tunnels and sub. ways and acqueducts were being driven in New York one of the lead. ing mining journals came out with an article claiming that New York City was the greatest mining camp in the country, and proved beyond doubt that the contention was cor. rect.
 From time immemorial there have been miners and sappers" in the armies of the world. especially since the invention of gunpowder. and every one knows that their job has nothing to do with search for precious metals. Their work is to excavate and undermine and it is one of the vital cogs in the great modern war machine. In the British army they are known as the Royal Engineers, and the organization dates from the days of William the ConQueror. The entire trench system is their con- struction. Sappers and miners have been in special demand in the Brit. ish commands.
 The New York Sun says:
 "Strategists are pretty we'll con- vinced that the greatest Allied sue cess must be won by pushing the Ger mans back from one system of trenches to another at cost which eventually the Germans will not be able to pay. AS the Germans take up new positions the engineers ad- vance with the infantry and help to construct series of trenches to face them, or reconstruct what is left of the old German trenches.
 The soldier fights with his musket and Mills bomb and bayonct; tho sapper lights wlLh ea, til and bastiOn. and ariangcmenLs or trenches. Every twist ana curve in the trcnch-iine means so many lives saved; every LICK mvans so manJ Gc.mans helu ..t bay or wiped out"
 The sappeIs ui.t obj.ct is tU build up saIvlJ. Comfort ls a s,c ondary cOnAld.i atiOn, aAd while no. .ntirely fo4 gottIn, lhe result IS u-u;iA iJ fat from Sau-IactO4J. 1..nch La.. become a tamillar Wo.d Oi late yea. D, tailed accounto t.om thu battle font. have more than very vague ada O. the labor necessary to con-truct th ~ elaborate and carefully plann-d sys- tenn now in uoe in pressing back tn enemy's lines. The Sun correspond ent's description is particularly illumi- hating:
 "The sapper knows, and every on who has been there knows, that at best the trench is rotten, inhuman place; he knows that it is bitter necessity just now and he tries to make it livable. The result is so in tricate that any soldier may get lost in his own trenches and needs signs at every corner to tell him where they are. Those famous posts, Pic cadilly,' Hyde Park Corner 'Leices- ter Square, are not merely the signs of British playfulness. They are ab- solutely essential. If these names were not used others would be essen tial.
 "The perfect trench-system of the present time is based on three lines: the firing. or front-line trench, the communication trench, and the base line.
 Leap into the front-line trench and walk down. You are about five feet underground. You are walking on fairly dry boards, called duck boards, on which your feet get good purchase with the help of wire net ting. AS you walk you brush the sides of the trench, and you notice the solidity of the walls. No trench perfect without revetting or wall support. The walls are firm-held firm by a variety of materials: plain boards. expanded metal, ordinary wire. boughs of trees. mating, any thing which will hold loam and sand against the effect of rain and thun- derstorm.
 "Ten feet from your starting point you turn to the right; a moment later you turn sharp to the left and are in a continuation of the trench you started on. You have rounded a traverse where the earth juts into the trench like an arrowhead. If Ger mans were coming down one side of the traverse you could drop behind on the other side and pick them off when they came near enough. The traverse is also an ideal place for bombing, because if an enemy bomb falls on your side of the traverse you have time to slip around the corner