Year: 1871

one who has been there, and the passage we walk along so freely was the bed of Seam of coal, long since removed by the miners who have pushed on into the bowels of the hill, and are now at work miles away tearing out the shining walls that dispute their further progress. To the right and to the left narrow chambers, such as we are in, branch off, some on upward grades, some down. ward.

 At intervals we are confronted by massive wooden doors used to control currents of air and secure ventilation. After walking good mile, and seeing nothing but mules hauling the coal cars along the track to some place in the mysterious distance, we come at last to the chambers where the miners are at work. We find these chambers to be passages like those through which. we entered: some broad and high, some low and cramped, all supplied with iron tracks leading to the end. At the ex- tremities of these chambers or work ings, the miner stands, pick or bar in hand, delving and wrenching to remove huge masses of coal from the seam whose lead he Is following. Here is the coal we seek, and here is the miner, laboring patiently by the dim light of his single lamp, isolated by walls of rock and earth from his companions, water dripping from the roof and standing in pools at his feet, in constant danger, and allotted to incessant toil. The huge chunks of coal, wrought out, by manual force or blasting powder, fall into heaps on the floor and are loaded by the miner or his help into car that stands ready, then drawn by mules along the gangway to the shaft, and hoisted by machinery to the surface above. This shaft is the commencement of operations in opening mine, and is connected by gangways with every chamber worked, and some times extends 8 hundred fathoms into the earth.

 A mine many hundred feet deep is in splendid working order ; men, boys, and horses, filed with animation and indus try, throng the chambers the sound of the busy hammer, pick and car enlivens the sense, and everything in cheerful contrast with the gloom that envelopes the circulationsof air is interrupted fire damp immediately aecumulates to an explosive degree in some portion of the

 

 the region and sets the whole in a blaze, which sufocates and consumes every thing in reach. Such is the force of this concussion and those succeeding, that those out of the range of flame are stunned or prostrated by the shock Their lights are blown out and the warn ing that the explosion may be rolling along the chambers to meet them, | ko %o 14 shaft. Unusual heaps of rubbish i'm the wild confusion to uncertain alleys, and sink down, overcome by noxious vapors, or are swallowed up in the seeth- ing atmosphere of flame that may pene- trate every part of the mine. :.

 The miners of this region earn very high wages the year round when they work. Those who. are sober and frugal own their own houses and save money. The life is rather an adventurous one, and the temptation is to spend their earnings freely. The grocery bills o1 some small families average fifty and six ty dollars per month, the women declar. ing that their good men work hard fo1 their money, and their only comfort is in what they eat and drink. But this underground work is not necessarily more severe than certain kinds of labor done upon the surface. It is seldom that a miner will leave the works and come tc the sod to earn his living. The mining is done at so much per car, and they cal have their own way. and in dry well. ventilated mine they suffer no severe extremes of weather, and are generally healthy. But in mines where the beds are thin, and the way in and out it through narrow, cramped alleys, fillei with foul air, water streaming from the roof and knee-deep on the floor, and the air SO heavy that candle sheds nc light ten or fifteen feet away and mus be constantly swung to keep up tho flame, then the miners life is one of un ending hardship, and must he endured to be appreciated.