In all the cases hitherto mentioned, the remains or relics of

prehistoric man, however remote a date we may assign to them, have been

found associated with fossil shells and mammalia of living species. In

the instances I am now about to relate, we advance a step further back,

and find man the contemporary either of extinct mammalia or such as

could now no longer exist in the lands where once they throve. As the

mere mention of the numerous caves in Belgium, England, France, and

Germany, in which human bones or articles of human workmanship have been

found embedded along with the fossil remains of extinct animals, would

tire the reader’s patience, I select from the number a few which have

afforded the most convincing proofs of the antiquity of man. The credit

of having given the first impulse to these fruitful investigations is

due to the late Dr. Schmerling, of Liège, who, with untiring zeal,

devoted several years of his life to the exploring of the ossiferous

caverns which border the valley of the Meuse and its tributaries. To

gain access to many of the caves was in itself no easy task, as their

openings could be reached only by a rope tied to a tree; and when we

consider that, after these arduous preliminaries, Dr. Schmerling had

frequently to creep on all fours through contracted passages leading to

larger chambers, there to superintend by torchlight, week after week,

and year after year, the workmen who were breaking through a stalagmitic

crust as hard as marble, in order to remove, piece by piece, the

underlying bone breccia nearly as hard, and that while thus directing

their labours he stood for hours with his feet in the mud, and with

water dripping from the roof on his head, in order to mark the position

and guard against the loss of each single bone which they brought to

light, we can scarcely praise too highly his rare devotion to the cause

of science.

Among these caverns thus laboriously explored, that of Engis was found

to contain the remains of at least three human beings deeply buried

under a thick floor of stalagmite. The skull of one of these, who may

have been a beauty when the Meuse flowed at least fifty feet above its

present channel, was embedded by the side of a mammoth’s tooth. Another

skull was buried five feet deep in a breccia in which the tooth of a

rhinoceros, several bones of a horse, and some of the reindeer, together

with some ruminants, occurred. On the right bank of the Meuse, on the

opposite side of the river to Engis, is the cavern of Engihoul, where

likewise bones of extinct animals, mingled with those of man, were

observed to abound; but with this difference, that whereas in the Engis

cave there were several human crania and but very few other bones, in

Engihoul there occurred numerous bones of the extremities belonging to

at least three human beings, and only two small fragments of a cranium.

None of the caves examined by Schmerling contained an example of an

entire skeleton, and the bones were invariably so rolled and scattered

as to preclude all idea of their having been intentionally buried on the

spot. As no gnawed bones nor any coprolites were found, he inferred that

the caverns of the province of Liège had not been the den of wild

beasts, but that their organic and inorganic contents had been swept

into them by streams communicating with the surface of the country. In

1860 Sir Charles Lyell, on a visit to Liège, determined still further to

examine the Cave of Engihoul, into which Schmerling had delved in 1831,

and engaged some workmen to break through the crust of stalagmite with

the intention of searching for bones in the undisturbed earth beneath.

Bones and teeth of the cave-bear were soon found, and, at the depth of

two feet below the crust of stalagmite, three fragments of a human

skull, and two perfect lower jaws with teeth, all associated with the

bones of bears, large pachyderms and ruminants, and so precisely

resembling these in colour and state of preservation as to leave no

doubt that man was contemporary with the extinct animals.

Our English bone-caves have likewise afforded abundant proofs of the

antiquity of our race. In 1858 a new series of caverns having been

accidentally discovered near the sea at Brixham, by the roof of one of

them being broken through in quarrying, the Royal Society resolved to

have it scientifically and thoroughly examined. The united length of the

galleries which were cleared out under the superintendence of

experienced geologists amounted to several hundred feet. Their width

never exceeded eight feet. They were sometimes filled up to the roof

with mud, but occasionally there was a considerable space between the

roof and floor. The numerous fossils discovered during the progress of

the excavations were all numbered and labelled with reference to a

journal in which the geological position of each specimen was recorded

with scrupulous care.

As in many other bone-caverns, the underground passages and channels

were generally found floored with a layer of stalagmite, varying in

thickness from one to fifteen inches, and next below occurred loam or

bone-earth from two to fifteen feet in thickness. In the latter were

found remains of the mammoth, of the cave-bear, of the cave-lion, and

other extinct mammalia. No human bones were obtained, but many flint

knives, chiefly from the lowest part of the bone-earth, and one of the

most perfect lay at the depth of thirteen feet from the surface, and was

covered with bone-earth of that thickness.

At one point in the overlying stalagmite a perfect reindeer’s horn was

found sticking, and in another an entire humerus of the cave-bear—a

convincing proof that both these animals must have lived after the flint

tools were manufactured, or in other words that man in this district

preceded the cave-bear. ‘A glance at the position of Windmill Hill, in

which the caverns are situated, and a brief survey of the valleys which

bound it on three sides, are enough to satisfy a geologist that the

drainage and geographical features of this region have undergone great

changes since the gravel and bone-earth were carried by streams into the

subterranean cavities. Some worn pebbles of hematite, in particular, can

only have come from their nearest parent rock at a period when the

valleys immediately adjoining the caves were much shallower than they

now are. The reddish loam in which the bones are embedded is such as may

be seen on the surface of limestone in the neighbourhood, but the

currents which were formerly charged with such mud must have run at a

level seventy-eight feet above that of the stream now flowing in the

same valley.’[32]

Footnote 32:

Lyell, ‘Antiquity of Man,’ p. 101.

In 1861, Colonel Wood found, in a newly discovered cave of the peninsula

of Gower, in Glamorganshire, the remains of two species of rhinoceros,

R. teichorhinus and R. hemitœchus, in an undisturbed deposit, in the

lower part of which were some well-shaped flint knives, evidently of

human workmanship. This is the first well-authenticated example of the

occurrence of human implements in connexion with R. hemitœchus—the first

proof that this extinct brute, elsewhere the usual companion of the

mammoth, has been coeval with man.

In 1852, on the side of a hill near the small town of Aurignac in the

South of France, a sepulchral grotto was discovered which, though

unadorned and rude, is of the highest interest, as in point of antiquity

it surpasses all other burial-places known, and leads us back to times

long anterior to the oldest traditions of our race. In that year a

labourer observed that rabbits, when hotly pursued by the sportsman, ran

into a hole which they had burrowed in a talus of rubbish washed down

from the hill above. Expecting no doubt to ‘drag some struggling savage

into day’ he reached as far into the opening as the length of his arm,

and drew out, to his surprise, one of the long bones of a human

skeleton. His curiosity being excited he then began to dig a trench

through the middle of the talus, and in a few hours found himself

opposite a large heavy slab of rock, placed vertically against the

entrance. Having removed this, he discovered on the other side of it an

arched cavity almost filled with bones, among which were two entire

skulls, which he recognised at once as human.

The good people of Aurignac, highly interested in the discovery, flocked

to the cave, and as they probably expressed a wish to see the bones of

what they supposed to be their forefathers enjoy a Christian burial, the

mayor ordered these human relics to be removed from the lonely spot in

which they had so long reposed in peace, and to be re-interred in the

parish cemetery. But before this was done—having, as a medical man, a

knowledge of anatomy, though, as it seems, a very imperfect idea of the

ethnological value of the discovery—he ascertained that the bones must

have formed parts of no less than seventeen skeletons of both sexes.

Unfortunately, the skulls were injured in the transfer, and the

interment was so negligently conducted that when, after the lapse of

eight years, M. Lartet visited Aurignac, even the place could not be

pointed out into which the skeletons had been thrown.

The eminent antiquary, however, resolved systematically to investigate

the ground inside and outside the vault, and, having obtained the

assistance of some intelligent workmen, made the following interesting

discoveries, which amply rewarded him for his trouble. Outside the

grotto, he found a layer of ashes and charcoal, about six inches thick,

extending over an area of six or seven square yards, and going no

further than the entrance of the cave, there being no cinders or

charcoal in the interior. Among the ashes were fragments of sandstone,

reddened by heat, which had once formed a hearth, not fewer than a

hundred flint articles, and knives, projectiles, sling-stones, and

chips. Here also lay scattered the bones of various animals, some

belonging to species extinct for thousands of years in France, such as

the mammoth, the Siberian rhinoceros, the reindeer, and the gigantic

Irish deer; and among these bones those which had contained marrow were

invariably split open, as if for its extraction, many of them being also

burnt. The spongy parts, moreover, were wanting, having been eaten off

and gnawed after they were broken—the work, according to M. Lartet, of

hyenas, whose bones and coprolites were mixed with the cinders and

dispersed through the overlying soil. These beasts of prey are supposed

to have prowled about the spot, and fed on such relics of the funeral

feasts as remained after the retreat of the human visitors.

In the cave itself, along with some detached human bones which had

escaped removal to the churchyard, were also found the bones of animals

and some rude works of art, flat pieces of shell pierced through the

middle as if for being strung into a bracelet, and the carved tusk of a

young boar, perforated lengthwise as if for suspension as an ornament.

The bones of animals inside the vault differed in a remarkable manner

from those of the exterior, as none of them were broken, gnawed, half-

eaten, or burnt, like those which were found lying among the ashes on

the other side of the great slab which formed the portal. They seemed

also to have been clothed with their flesh when buried in the layer of

loose soil strewed over the floor, as they were often observed to be in

juxtaposition, and in one spot all the bones of the leg of an _Ursus

spelæus_ were lying together uninjured. When we consider that it is

still the custom of many savage tribes to bury with the bodies of the

dead pieces of meat, such as the bear’s fat haunch, so that they may not

lack food on their long journey to the land of spirits, we gain a most

interesting glimpse into the life of prehistoric man, the contemporary

of the reindeer, the cave-bear, and the mammoth in the South of France.

Armed with flint weapons, he had established his supremacy over the wild

beasts of the forest. Rude and ferocious as no doubt he was, he

carefully preserved the remains of his friends and kinsfolk, and

performed funeral feasts before the vaults in which their bodies were

interred.

The lower parts of the Valley of the Somme, far above Amiens and below

Abbeville, as far as the sea, are covered with a bed of peat, in some

places more than thirty feet thick. Near the surface of these moor

grounds Gallo-Roman remains have been found, and, still deeper, Celtic

weapons of the stone period; but the thickness of the superincumbent

vegetable matter is far inferior to that of the underlying peat, so that

many thousands of years must necessarily have passed since the first

growth of that swampy vegetation. But, however remote its age, it is

still of later date than the adjoining or underlying alluvial deposits

of clay, gravel, and sand, which cannot originally have ended abruptly

as they do now, but must have once been continuous further towards the

centre of the valley. A long time must necessarily have elapsed between

their deposition and subsequent denudation, and the first growth of the

peat. In the lowest, and consequently oldest, of these beds, there has

been found also a mixture of freshwater and marine shells, bones of the

primitive elephant and teichorhine rhinoceros, and a number of flint

implements shaped by the hands of man. Thus we have here convincing

proofs that a race of savages inhabited the Valley of the Somme long

before it was scooped out to its present depth, and when as yet not a

trace existed of the thick bed of peat which now covers its lower

grounds, and required so many thousand years for its formation.

Similar flint implements, in connexion with the bones of extinct

animals, have been disinterred from ancient drift formations in many

parts of England—in Surrey, Middlesex, Kent, Bedfordshire, and Suffolk.

In the British Museum there is, among others, a flint spear-headed

weapon which was found with an elephant’s tooth near Gray’s Inn Lane in

1715.

When, according to the old myth, Evander led Æneas over the site of

future Rome, they saw the cattle grazing in what was to be the Forum,

and heard them bellowing among the future dwellings of the rich senators

and knights,

——‘passimque armenta videbant

Romanoque Foro et lautis mugire Carinis.’

The change thus pointed out by Virgil was far less than that exemplified

by these few relics of a time when possibly no intervening sea separated

Britain from the rest of the world.

CHAPTER XXI.

TROGLODYTES OR CAVE-DWELLERS—CANNIBAL CAVES.

Cave Dwellings in the Val d’Ispica—The Sicanians—Cannibal Caves in South

Africa—The Rock City of the Themud—Legendary Tale of its Destruction.

Caves were probably the earliest habitations of primitive man, the first

rude shelter for which he had to do battle with the hyena or the bear.

As we have seen in the preceding chapter, some of the oldest relics of

his prehistoric existence have been discovered in caves; and at a far

later period, when he had already made some progress in the arts, we

find many races still adhering to the subterranean dwellings of their

forefathers. Such a state of things may possibly be indicated in the

mythical stories of the Greek and Trojan heroes, who, near the base of

Mount Etna, are said to have found caverns tenanted by the troglodytic

tribe of the Cyclops.

In another part of Sicily the old cave-dwellings of the Val d’Ispica

deservedly attract the antiquarian’s attention. The vale is a narrow

gorge, situated between Modica and Spaccafurno; and throughout its whole

length of about eight Italian miles, the rock-walls on both sides are

pierced with innumerable grottoes, which at first sight might be taken

for the productions of nature, but on a closer inspection evidently show

that they are the work of man, and have been originally excavated to

serve as dwellings. The luxuriant vegetation of the Val forms a pleasing

contrast with the naked sterility of the plain in which it is imbedded;

a small rivulet flows along the bottom, and irrigates wild fig-trees and

stately oleanders; on a higher level grow broad-leaved acanthuses and

wild artichokes, while thick festoons of cactus hang down from the top

of the rocks and shade the entrance of the grottoes. These are excavated

at various heights above the bottom of the vale, and often consist of

two or three stories, one above the other. A great part of the rock-wall

on the right bank of the brook has fallen in, and exposes to sight the

internal arrangement of the dwellings. On the mounds of rubbish the

visitor is able to ascend to the entrances of the caves, which

originally can have been accessible only by ladders. The chambers are

seldom more than twenty feet deep and six feet high and broad. The

above-mentioned rock-slip has laid open, among others, a dwelling of

three stories, with flights of steps in a good state of preservation, to

which, on account of its superior dimensions, the neighbouring peasants

have given the name of Castello d’Ispica, and which may have been the

abode of a chieftain.

Several mortar-like basins or troughs, hollowed in the rock, evidently

served for the pounding of corn, so that the inhabitants, whoever they

were, must have known at least some of the arts of civilised life. A few

of the rooms or burrows (for their size hardly warrants a better name)

are still tenanted by shepherds, whose whole furniture consists of a

kettle, a few pots, and some skins to lie upon. Parthey, a learned

German traveller,[33] who visited many of the caves (the whole number

probably exceeding 1,500), nowhere found the least traces of ornament

about them; the doors and windows were mere rough holes broken through

the rock. Thus there can be no doubt that the fragments of painted vases

and sculptured marble that have been found here and there in the caves

belong to a much later period, for a people sufficiently advanced in the

arts to paint vases and to chisel marble could not possibly have been

content with a mole-like existence. If we seek to ascertain the probable

age of this cavern city, all circumstances combine to throw back its

origin to a very ancient date. The total want of artistic decoration at

once forbids us to assign these extensive but rude excavations to one of

the Greek tribes which successively founded colonies in the island after

expelling the aborigines from their ancestral seats. In the Roman, the

Saracenic, or some later period a band of fugitives might indeed have

found a temporary retreat in this remote vale, but could hardly have

remained concealed long enough to execute a work which evidently

required long years of undisturbed toil. Thus it has been conjectured

that these caves were the dwellings of the ancient Sicanians, a people

who became known to history only when about to disappear for ever from

the stage of the world, having left no memorial of their existence save

perhaps these rude vestiges of an infant state of society.

Footnote 33:

‘Wanderungen durch Sicilien.’

We may justly presume that the aborigines of Malta, the Balearic

Islands, and Sardinia were likewise troglodytes when the first foreign

colonists landed on the shores of these islands. And such, after the

lapse of more than thirty centuries, are the Sarde shepherds of the

present day, who frequently have no better dwellings than the caves of

the rocks.

In Southern Italy the traveller meets with traces of the same primitive

mode of life. Near a place called Iscalonga, in the province of

Basilicata Mr. Mallet found many inhabited caves, excavated in dry tufa

of extreme antiquity. Some of the troglodytes came out to see him pass,

and looked savage and queer enough in their rough brown blanket-cloaks,

with peaked hoods and sheepskins.

Irrespective of climate, we at the present day find cave-dwellers among

the tribes of the frozen regions of the North and the Arabs of the stony

wastes bordering on the Red Sea, in the Libyan deserts, and in the

sandstone rocks of Southern Africa, wherever nature has formed grottoes

or the soft material admits of an easy excavation.

Amongst the many interesting objects of the Transgariep country are the

celebrated cannibal caverns which extend from the Moluta river to the

Caledon river. Thirty years ago they were inhabited by a race of men

who, like the lion or the panther, were the scourge of the whole

neighbouring country. Their mode of living was to send out hunting

parties, who would conceal themselves among the rocks and bushes, and

lie in ambush near roads, drifts, gardens, or watering-places for the

purpose of surprising and capturing women, children, or travellers. The

influence of the chieftain Moshesh induced them to change their evil

practices for a better mode of life, and they are now said to be an

inoffensive people of agriculturists and traders. When Mr. James Henry

Bowker visited the caves near the sources of the Caledon river, in 1868,

he met at one of them an old savage, one of the most ill-looking

ruffians he had ever beheld, who had formerly assisted at the cooking

and bone-picking of many a human victim, and, like the Last Minstrel,

seemed greatly to regret that

‘Old times were changed,

Old manners gone;’

and that

‘The bigots of the iron time

Had called his _harmless life_ a crime.’

The largest cavern is situated amongst the mountains beyond Thaba

Bosigo, the residence of the old chief Moshesh, about ten miles distant

from the deserted missionary station Cana. The entrance to this cavern

is formed by the overhanging cliff, and its arched and lofty roof is

blackened with the smoke and soot of the fires which served for the

preparation of many a horrible repast. At the further end of the cave

some rough irregular steps led up to a gloomy-looking natural gallery

where the victims not required for immediate consumption were confined.

The cannibals, consisting of Betshuana and Kafir tribes, had the less

excuse for their barbarity as they inhabit a fine agricultural country,

which likewise abounds in game; but it is said that, having in a time of

famine been reduced to the horrible extremity of eating human flesh,

they acquired a taste for it, and continued to relish it as a delicacy

even in times of abundance. Though they are now reported to be no longer

cannibals, there is reason to fear that they have not yet entirely

abandoned their diabolical way of living, for among the numerous bones

which strewed the floor of the cavern and had chiefly belonged to

children and young persons, Mr. Bowker found some that could hardly have

been there many months. The skull of a child which lay before the mouth

of the cavern afforded a touching example of ‘life in death,’ for a

little bulb had sprung up from its cavity and covered it with a graceful

tuft of drooping leaves.

At the distance of a ten days’ journey from Medina on the road of the

pilgrim caravans from Damascus, lies the deserted rock-city of the

Themud, where a whole people had hewn their dwellings in the black rock,

decorating the entrances with small columns on both sides, and tracing

numerous inscriptions on the walls. No European traveller has ever

visited this curious spot, for the Bedouins render the neighbourhood

insecure, and the pilgrims to the holy cities allow no infidel to

accompany them on their journey. How the subterranean city came to be

deserted is still a secret of the past; but probably its ruin must be

traced back as far as the first or second century of the Christian era,

for Mahomet cites it more than once in his Koran as a warning to all

true believers. According to the legend the prophet Saleh once came to

Themud to convert the idolatrous inhabitants to the belief of the one

true God. As a proof of his divine mission they required a miracle to be

performed, upon which the prophet, raising his staff, struck the rock,

which immediately opened and gave passage to a she-camel with its young.

But the obdurate pagans, still persisting in their incredulity, killed

the camel, and the young would no doubt have shared its mother’s fate,

if it had not speedily retired into the rock whence it had come forth.

The sacrilegious crime of the Themud did not long remain unpunished. A

dreadful earthquake destroyed them to the last man, and ever since the

place is cursed. When the caravan passes by, the pilgrims raise loud

shouts and hurry along as fast as they can, fearful of their dromedaries

becoming shy from the wailings of the young camel, which is still

supposed to exist in the rock.

CHAPTER XXII.

TUNNELS.

Subterranean London—The Mont Cenis Tunnel—Its Length—Ingenious Boring

Apparatus—The Grotto of the Pausilippo—The Tomb of Virgil.

The most renowned subterranean works of previous ages are generally of a

religious character, as they have been executed to serve either as

resting-places for the dead, or as temples in which gods or saints were

worshipped. Thus the rock-tombs of the Egyptian Pharaohs and the sacred

grottoes of India still bear witness to the feelings which conceived and

realised the idea of these stupendous excavations.

Our own times furnish no similar examples of underground temples or

mausoleums on a scale so grand as to command the admiration of

posterity. We neither scoop out whole mountains nor deeply plunge into

the entrails of the earth to reverence the dead or to testify our

devotion; our subterranean labours all bear the stamp of practical

utility. But never yet has the genius of man executed such wondrous

excavations as those of the present day; and though the purposes for

which they are performed may seem commonplace and prosaic when compared

with the ideal aims of the unknown artists who planned the Pharaonic

rock-tombs, or the temples of Ellora, yet the boldness of their

conception entitles them to rank among the grandest architectural works,

while the difficulty of their execution would have appalled the most

enterprising engineers of any age.

Modern London alone has more subterranean wonders to boast of than all

the capitals of the ancient world. As in the human frame numberless

vessels and nerves provide for the circulation of the blood, and convey

telegraphic signals through every part, so in the vast body of our

metropolis an amazing system of subterranean communication carries off

the sewerage of its millions of inhabitants, provides them with light

and water, conveys intelligence from one end to the other of its

enormous circuit almost with the rapidity of thought, transports

thousands of travellers below the crowded streets, and, not satisfied

with all these achievements, opens passages under the broad river to

which it owes its boundless wealth.

[Illustration: BORING MACHINE IN THE TUNNEL, MONT CENIS.]

But even the wonders of subterranean London, or of Paris—where troops

moving underground can march from one fortified caserne to the other, so

that, in a more literal sense than Pompey, the rulers of France can say

that they have but to stamp upon the ground to make legions start up

from the soil—are surpassed by those which the railroad calls forth in

its triumphal progress through the world. The Alps themselves, with

their eternal snows, no longer oppose a barrier to the locomotive; and

we have lived to witness the completion of the most gigantic tunnel ever

yet devised by man. The borer has slowly but indefatigably done its work

in the entrails of Mont Cenis, and the subterranean junction of France

and Italy has been at length achieved. The tunnel, which pierces 12,201

metres, or nearly seven miles, of solid rock, opens on the Italian side

at Bardonneche, 1,291 metres (about 4,000 feet) above the level of the

sea, and on the French side at Modane, at a height of 1,163 metres. From

each opening the tunnel gently ascends towards its culminating point in

the centre of the mountain, so as to allow the waters to drain off on

either side. The direction of the excavations was determined by

trigonometrical measurement, which of course required the nicest

accuracy, as a deviation of but half a centimetre on both sides would

amount to no less than 120 metres in the centre.

[Illustration: BORING MACHINE IN THE SECOND WORKING GALLERY, MONT CENIS

TUNNEL.]

For this purpose a signal was erected on the mountain above the

culminating point or the centre of the tunnel; and opposite to each

entrance, in the same longitudinal axis, a large theodolite pointed to

the above-mentioned signal and towards a light in the interior of the

tunnel, so that the slightest deviation from the requisite direction was

rendered mathematically impossible.

The machines used in the drivage of the tunnel were worked by means of

compressed air. The comminuted rock produced during the boring was

continuously removed by a jet of water squirted into the hole by the

machine—a precaution which was found to be of great economy in the wear

of the tools. Under ordinary conditions the working speed was about 200

strokes per minute, at which rate from eight to ten holes, of 1·6 inches

diameter and 35 inches deep, could be bored in the shift of six hours.

The tunnel is of an [18] section, 13 feet broad and 9¾ feet high; eight

machines were employed at one time; they were mounted on a wrought-iron

frame, which travelled on a railway, and could be removed to a safe

distance when the blasting took place. From 65 to 70 holes were bored in

the face of the rock, and then loaded with uniform charges, made up into

cartridges, and primed with fuses of different lengths, so as to explode

in groups at definite intervals. A horizontal series at about mid height

was first fired, then followed two vertical side rows, then a group near

the crown of the arch, and finally a horizontal series near the floor.

In this way the rock was blown down in nearly uniform fragments of from

six to eight inches in the side. At first, owing to the hardness of the

quartz-slate which had to be pierced, the work went on very slowly; but

at a greater depth, the mountain was found to consist of limestone

strata, so that at length it advanced about thirteen feet per day.

The compressed air which set the borers in motion served also for the

ventilation of the tunnel, as every stroke of the piston liberated

sufficient pure air to drive back to a considerable distance from the

workmen the suffocating gases, produced by the blasting, which otherwise

would render breathing impossible. Air-pumps placed before the entrance

finally conducted the fumes of the gunpowder or dynamite into the open

air. It is evident that the difference in height of the two openings,

and the gradual ascent towards the centre, will insure a thorough

ventilation. In the beginning of September 1869 the Italian side of the

tunnel, which is 5,913 metres long, was completed, while on the French

side only 4,222 metres were accomplished and 2056 remained to be bored,

and it was calculated that this gigantic enterprise would most probably

be terminated by the beginning of 1871. It was, however, completed a few

days earlier.

When Louis Quatorze, that model of regal pomposity, succeeded in placing

the crown of Spain on the head of his grandson Philip of Anjou, he bid

him grandiloquently farewell with the words: ‘Go, my son! the Pyrenees

no longer exist.’ With more truth is our age able now to declare that

the Alps have ceased to be a barrier between nations.

There can be no doubt that the Mont Cenis tunnel will soon be followed

by similar undertakings, some probably on a still grander scale. The

governments of Italy, Switzerland, and Germany have already decided upon

piercing a tunnel through the Mount St. Gothard. In winter the traveller

will no longer be obliged to ascend the solitudes of the Schöllenen, to

cross the Devil’s Bridge, and then, after traversing the valley of

Urseren, to pursue his perilous way up to the summit of the pass, before

a zigzag descent, along yawning precipices, leads him into the sunny

vale of the Ticino; but at Göschenen on the north he will plunge at once

into the bowels of the mountain, and in an hour will suddenly emerge at

Airilo into the genial south. In early spring the change of climate will

be almost miraculous; on one side winter still reigning supreme, the

earth covered with deep snow and the cold wind moaning through the

leafless trees—and then, after a short interval of darkness, the rich

vegetation of an Italian vale bursting forth in all its first

luxuriance, birds singing in the chestnut groves, and the green meads

enamelled with myriads of flowers.

It is curious to compare these stupendous works with the most celebrated

tunnel of ancient times, the Grotto of the Pausilippo, near Naples,

which serves as a passage for the travellers who intend visiting

Puzzuoli, Baiæ, or Cumæ, without being obliged to ascend the mountain or

to cross the bay. It is about a mile long, from thirty to eighty feet

high and twenty-eight feet broad, so as to allow three carriages to pass

abreast. Twice a year, in February and October, the last rays of the sun

dart for a few minutes through the whole length of the grotto; at all

other times a speck of gray uncertain light terminates the long and

solemn perspective. The origin of this celebrated grotto is unknown.

Some old chroniclers have imagined it as ancient as the Trojan war;

others attribute it to the mysterious race of the Cimmerians.

The Neapolitans attribute a more modern, though not more certain, origin

to their famous cavern, and most piously believe it to have been formed

by the enchantments of Virgil, who, as Addison very justly observes, is

better known at Naples in his magical character than as the author of

the ‘Æneid.’ This strange infatuation most probably arose from the fact

that the tomb, in which his ashes are supposed to have been deposited,

is situated above the grotto, and that, according to popular tradition,

it was guarded by those very spirits who assisted in constructing the

cave. King Robert, a wise, though far from poetical, monarch, conducted

his friend Petrarch with great solemnity to the spot, and, pointing to

the entrance of the grotto, very gravely asked him whether he did not

adopt the general belief, and conclude that this stupendous passage

derived its origin from Virgil’s powerful incantations.

‘When I had sat for some time,’ says Beckford,[34] ‘on a loose stone

immediately beneath the first gloomy arch of the grotto, contemplating

the dusky avenue, and trying to persuade myself that it was hewn by the

Cimmerians, I retreated, without proceeding any further, and followed a

narrow path which led me, after some windings and turnings, along the

brink of the precipice, across a vineyard, to that retired nook of the

rocks which shelters Virgil’s tomb, most venerably mossed over and more

than half concealed by bushes and vegetation. The clown who conducted me

remained aloof at awful distance whilst I sat communing with the manes

of my beloved poet, or straggled about the shrubbery which hangs

directly above the mouth of the grot.

Footnote 34:

‘Italy.’

‘Advancing to the edge of the rock, I saw crowds of people and

carriages, diminished by distance, issuing from the bosom of the

mountain, and disappearing almost as soon as discovered in the windings

of the road. Clambering high above the cavern, I hazarded my neck on the

top of one of the pines, and looked contemptuously down on the race of

pigmies that were so busily moving to and fro. The sun was fiercer than

I could have wished, but the sea breezes fanned me in my aërial

situation, which commanded the grand sweep of the bay, varied by

convents, palaces, and gardens, mixed with huge masses of rock, and

crowned by the stately buildings of the Carthusians and fortress of St.

Elmo. Add a glittering blue sea to this perspective, with Caprea rising

from its bosom, and Vesuvius breathing forth a white column of smoke

into the æther, and you will then have a scene upon which I gazed with

delight for more than an hour, forgetting that I was perched upon the

head of a pine with nothing but a frail branch to uphold me. However, I

descended alive, as Virgil’s genii, I am resolved to believe, were my

protectors.’

CHAPTER XXIII.

ON MINES IN GENERAL.

Perils of the Miner’s Life—Number of Casualties in British and Foreign

Coal Mines—Life in a Mine—Occurrence of Ores—Extent and Depth of

Metallic Veins—Mines frequently discovered by Chance—The Divining Rod—

Experimental Borings—Stirring Emotions during their Progress—Sinking

of Shafts—Precautions against Influx of Water—Expense—Shaft Accidents—

Various Methods of working Mineral Substances—Working in Direct and

Reverse Steps—Working by Transverse Attacks—Open Quarry Workings—

Pillar and Stall System—Long Wall System—Dangerous Extraction of

Pillars—Mining Implements—Blasting—Heroes in Humble Life—Firing in the

Mine of Rammelsberg—Transport of Minerals Underground—Modern

Improvements—Various Modes of Descent—Corfs—Wonderful Preservation of

a Girl at Fahlun—The Loop—Safety Cage—Man Machines—Timbering and

Walling of Galleries—Drainage by Adit Levels—Remarkable Adits—The

Great Cornish Adit—The Georg Stollen in the Harz—The Ernst August

Stollen—Steam Pumps—Drowning of Mines—Irruption of the Sea into

Workington Colliery—Hubert Goffin—Irruption of the River Garnock into

a Mine—Ventilation of Mines—Upcast Shafts—Fire Damp—Dreadful

Explosions—The Safety Lamp—The Choke Damp—Conflagrations of Mines—The

Burning Hill in Staffordshire.

Few metals are found in a native state, nor are they commonly scattered

in loose masses, nuggets, grains, or scales over the surface of the

earth. Hence the seeker’s trouble is by no means confined to the task of

gathering these masses, or of separating them by washing from the

alluvial sand or gravel with which they are mixed; much more frequently

they are chemically combined with other substances from which a far

advanced state of science is alone able to separate them, or deeply

imbedded in subterranean mines, often so difficult of access as to tax

for their working all the energies of man and all the resources of his

metallurgic skill. The labours of the miner require indeed no less

courage and presence of mind than those of the mariner. He no more knows

whether he shall ever return from the pit into which he descends in the

morning for his hard day’s work than the sailor knows whether he shall

ever revisit the port which he is leaving. He is perpetually at war with

fire and earth, with air and water, and this eternal strife levies a no

less heavy tribute of death and suffering than the storms of the raging

seas.

In the year 1867, 1,190 persons perished in our 3,192 collieries, which

employ a total of 333,116 workmen. Of these, 286 were killed by

explosions; 449 by falls of rock; 211 by other subterranean causes; 156

in the shafts; and 88 above ground. In the same year, 293 lives were

lost in the Prussian collieries, where 102,773 workmen find employment.

Of these, 39 perished by fire-damp; 106 by fall of roof; 65 in shafts;

74 by casualties under ground; and 9 by casualties above ground. These

melancholy lists may give us some idea of the number of serious but non-

fatal accidents which are not mentioned in the official accounts. Every

visitor to a coal-mine will meet with many pit lads who have been

‘lamed’ (or injured) several times in a few years, and who reckon events

by the mournful chronology of their various ‘lamings.’ Collieries, as

will be seen in the sequel, are indeed peculiarly liable to frightful

accidents; yet the number of lives lost in the inspected ironstone mines

of Great Britain, in 1866, amounted to 81. Extending our view to the

mines of Austria and Russia, of France and Belgium, of Mexico and Peru,

&c., &c., where the same dangers cause, no doubt, an equal amount of

death or suffering, we may justly conclude that not a day, probably not

an hour, passes that does not doom more than one miner to an untimely

grave or to permanent mutilation.

But if mining is attended with a lamentable amount of individual

suffering, the benefits derived from it by mankind in general are so

important that the whole fabric of modern civilisation may be said to

rest upon its basis.

Coal and the useful metals rule the world. Wherever they occur in large

masses they establish the prosperity of a people on the surest

foundations; and England is in a great measure indebted for her high

station among the nations of the earth to the treasures hidden beneath

her soil.

A large mine displays unquestionably some of the most interesting scenes

of human activity. The restless industry pervading its subterranean

caves and galleries impresses the visitor with feelings of wonder akin

to those which he experiences when he first sets foot on a man-of-war;

and if he feels giddy on seeing the sailor climb the loftiest masts, the

sight of the yawning abyss into which the miner undauntedly descends

seems terrible to his unaccustomed eye; and as he penetrates further and

further into the recesses of this unknown world, his sensations are not

rendered more agreeable.

The intricate passages branching out into a mysterious distance; the

vaults and high halls faintly illumined here and there by a glimmering

lamp; the dark forms emerging every now and then from some obscure

recess, and then again plunging into night, like demon shades; the

clanking of hammers, the rushing of waters, the creaking of wheels, the

monotonous sound of machinery, or the loud explosion which, repeated by

subterranean echoes, rolls like muttering thunder from vault to vault,

the oppressive air in the low galleries, through which he can only move

in a stooping position; the fear of being crushed any moment by a

falling rock, or shivered to atoms by fire-damp combustion,—all combine

to produce an impression which can seldom be made by any scenes above

ground.

The admiration which this imposing spectacle necessarily calls forth in

his mind increases when he reflects how much skill and experience was

required, and how many improvements and inventions had to be made,

before mining could be brought to its present state of perfection.

Ores sometimes occur, like coal, in layers or beds, running parallel

with the strata of the inclosing rocks, or in prodigious irregular

masses. Most commonly, however, they are found in veins traversing the

rocks in every conceivable direction, and filling the crevices and

chasms which former terrestrial revolutions have rent in the hard stone.

From the wild and titanic powers that have here been at work, it may

easily be imagined how irregular the direction of these veins must be,

and under how many various forms they must appear. Here they are

horizontal, there vertical; here they form thin layers, there they fill

chasms several hundred feet thick. Sometimes they split into several

minor branches, or make abrupt bends, and frequently they have been

rent, torn, or displaced in every possible manner by subsequent

revolutions.

Their length is as various as their thickness or their direction. Some

are short, while others traverse the rocks to a distance of many miles.

Thus the argentiferous veins in the neighbourhood of Clausthal, in the

Harz, are three leagues long, and the famous Veta Madre, or chief lode

of Guanaxuato in Mexico, has been traced for a length of eight miles.

With regard to depth, the lower extremity of hardly a single mineral bed

or vein of any note has as yet been pointed out, though many have been

worked to a considerable depth. Thus, one of the pits of St.

Andreasberg, in the Harz, is 2,485 feet deep, though, on account of its

high situation in the mountains, not much more than 280 feet below the

surface of the sea, while, in the coal mines of Valenciennes and Liège,

the deepest shafts are sunk from 1,300 to 1,600 feet below the level of

the ocean. The shaft of the colliery of Sacrée Madame, near Charleroi,

is 800 yards deep, and that of Dukinfield Colliery 2,050 feet.

The great difficulty of carrying on mining operations at great depths

will, probably, for ever prevent most metalliferous veins from being

followed to their origin in the bowels of the earth; for while on high

mountains the rarefaction of the atmosphere prevents respiration, the

increasing pressure or impurity of the air at a depth of four or five

thousand feet below the level of the sea must necessarily hinder the

free expansion of the lungs. The weakness of our organisation soon sets

limits to our progress, whether we wish to rise into the air or to

penetrate into the interior of the earth; and it is only on spiritual

wings that we soar aloft to the stars, or wander through the mysterious

depths of our planet.

How have the ores been collected or precipitated in the veins or strata

where they are often found in such enormous quantities? Partly they

ascended as vapour from unknown depths, and then were condensed in the

crevices, mixing with the gangue or the stones which filled the volcanic

chasms; and partly their solutions, of which the mineral springs of the

present day afford us so many examples, permeated the porous rocks, and

saturated them on cooling, or were forced to relinquish their valuable

contents by some more powerful chemical affinity. Thus, numberless years

before man appeared upon the stage of his future empire, the means were

provided without which it would never have been possible for him to

establish his dominion over the earth, and to make himself master of the

treasures it bears on its surface.

When we consider the frequent upheavings and subsidences of the earth-

rind and the denuding power of water, which, in the long series of ages,

cuts deep ravines into the mountains and washes away whole strata, we

cannot wonder that many metalliferous veins emerge or crop out on the

surface of the earth, so that a fortunate chance sufficed for their

discovery. Thus, a poor Indian looking for wood first found the rich

deposits of silver that had so long been buried in obscurity under the

sterile soil of Copiapo in Chili (1632). Partridges, in whose stomachs

grains of gold were found, are said to have led to the discovery of the

rich mines of Kremnitz and Schemnitz in Hungary; and Ramm, a huntsman of

the emperor Otho the Great, having bound his horse to a tree in a forest

near Goslar in the Harz Mountains, the fretful steed, stamping with

impatience and tearing up the soil, pointed out the celebrated lode of

the Rammelsberg, which is still worked to the present day.

But if in these and similar instances the treasures of the subterranean

world have revealed themselves spontaneously to man, in many other cases

laborious and costly investigations have been found necessary for their

discovery.

As civilisation advanced, and the value of the metals, of coal and salt,

came to be more and more appreciated, nothing could be more natural than

the desire of no longer relying upon the discoveries of chance or upon

the mines bequeathed by former ages, but of sounding the mysterious

recesses of the earth, and forcing her, by dint of patient exploration,

to reveal the riches she conceals under her surface.

Thus, as far back as the eleventh century, the _divining_ rod came into

practice, and found full credence in a superstitious age. A forked

branch of the hazel-tree, cut during a peculiar phase of the moon, was

the means employed in Germany for the discovery of buried treasures, of

veins of metal, of deposits of salt, or of subterranean sources. But the

miraculous rod did not indiscriminately show its powers in every hand;

it was necessary to have been born in certain months, and soft and warm—

or, according to the modern expression, _magnetic_—fingers were

indispensable for handling it with effect. The diviner possessing these

necessary qualifications took hold of the rod by its branches so that

the stem into which they united was directed upwards. On approaching the

spot where the sought-for treasure lay concealed, the magical rod slowly

turned towards it, until finally the stem had fully changed its position

and pointed vertically downwards. To increase the solemnity of the

scene, the wily conjurors generally traced magical circles that were not

to be passed, burnt strong smelling herbs and spices, and uttered

powerful charms to disarm the enmity of the evil spirits that were

supposed to guard the hidden treasures.

At present, the divining-rod has lost its old reputation, and more

rational means are employed for the discovery of mineral wealth. Relying

on experience, tact, and geological knowledge, the investigator

carefully examines the country where ores or coal are supposed to be

concealed, and having fixed upon an appropriate spot, has recourse

either to experimental digging or to boring for testing the truth of his

opinion. These expensive explorations, though often unsuccessful,

frequently prove highly remunerative, and many a saline spring, or coal

seam, or metallic vein would, without their assistance, have remained

unknown and unproductive.

Boring through hard stone is necessarily a very tedious work, but as it

proceeds it awakens not only in those who are directly interested in its

success, but in every intelligent witness, all the stirring emotions of

a game of chance. ‘Of all branches of business,’ says Williams, a

thoroughly devoted miner—‘of all the experiments that a man of

sensibility can be engaged in, or attend to, there is, perhaps, none so

amusing, so engaging, and delightful as a successful trial upon the

vestigia, or appearances, of a seam of coal, or other mineral

discoveries. When you are attending the people who are digging down or

forward upon the vestige of the coal, and the indications are increasing

and still growing better under your eye, the spirit of curiosity and

attention is awakened, and all the powers of expectation are elevated in

pleasing hopes of success. And when your wishes are at length actually

fulfilled—when you have discovered a good coal of sufficient thickness,

and all circumstances are favourable, the heart then triumphs with solid

and satisfactory joy.'

In a mining country like England, where the spirit of enterprise is

continually on the look-out for new sources of profit, it may naturally

be supposed that searches for coal or metallic ore must be frequently

undertaken. Thus in all our mining districts there are professional

master-borers, who engage for a fixed price to drill the hardest rock to

any depth that may be required.[35] Their chief implements are boring-

rods, made of the best and most tenacious Swedish iron; chisels fitted

with screws, tipped with good steel, with a face of two and a half to

three and a quarter inches, and generally eighteen inches in length; and

a wimble, which is a hollow iron instrument like an auger, whose cavity

is from six to ten inches in length, with an opening up at one side,

with partial overlap, the better to receive and hold the chopped strata.

Footnote 35:

In the North of England the prices of boring in the ordinary strata of

that coal-field are as follows:—

_s._ _d._

First five fathoms 5 6 per

fathom.

Second five ” 11 0 ”

Third five ” 16 6 ”

Fourth five ” 22 0 ”

and so increasing 5_s._ 6_d._ per fathom on each succeeding depth of

five fathoms. In boring through very hard strata the prices are from

80 to 100 per cent. higher.

When the bore is intended to penetrate to a considerable depth, a lofty

triangle of wood is set above the bore-hole. In boring, the lowermost

rod is the chisel, which continually operates on the rock or stratum.

The uppermost rod terminates in a stout ring, through which passes a

cross-piece held by two men in working, and which is also suspended to a

springing pole by a chain. One or more rods being pushed into the

ground, two men on a wooden stage take hold of a cross stave at the end

of the springing pole and work it steadily up and down, while two men

below, by means of the cross-piece, at the same time heave the suspended

rods a few inches, and then allow them to fall by their own weight,

walking slowly round the hole. By these combined operations of chopping

and scooping the workmen make slow but sure way through whatever

substance may be in contact with the chisel. When the hole is too deep,

and the added rods become too heavy to be conveniently lifted by manual

labour, a brake or lever, or a horse-gin or steam-engine, is employed.

As the boring proceeds, it is also frequently necessary to lower pipes

into the hole made, to prevent the falling of fragments from the sides

of the cylinder.

[Illustration: PROCESS OF BORING.]

When the position of a mineral vein is ascertained, its direction known,

and some reasonable conjecture made concerning its extent, thickness,

and value, measures must be taken to obtain, by subterraneous

excavation, the buried mineral, and for this purpose vertical pits or

shafts must be sunk, and horizontal galleries, or, as they are sometimes

called, _levels_, must be driven, to prepare the way for its convenient

extraction, and at the same time to carry off, so far as may be, the

water which either rises into the mine from springs, or drains into it

from the surrounding strata. Some idea may be formed of the extent of

these works in many of the more considerable mines, when we learn that

the total amount of sinking in the Consolidated Mines in Cornwall is

stated to amount to more than twelve miles of perpendicular depth

(including, of course, the winzes or underground shafts), and that the

horizontal galleries extend to as much as forty miles in length. A mine

like this is, in fact, a large subterranean town, with numerous lanes

and avenues, passages and thoroughfares.

[Illustration:

SECTION OF A LEAD MINE IN CARDIGANSHIRE.

_a._ Shafts. _b._ Levels.

]

In sinking a shaft, danger is to be apprehended both from the falling in

of loose and incoherent strata, and from the lateral springs, which

sometimes empty themselves into the workings to an extent which it would

at first appear hopeless to contend against. In such cases there is no

safety to be obtained without walling the shaft with brick or stone, or

securing it by timber or metal tubbing. For this purpose many of our

coal pits were formerly lined throughout with three-inch boards, nailed

to a circular wooden framework called a crib, which was firmly attached

to the sides of the pit at convenient distances. But this method,

although it has been known to keep out a pressure of water equal to 100

pounds on the square inch, is not considered so safe as the metal

tubbing now adopted in all difficult works. In comparatively solid

ground the cast-iron tubs are forced down the shaft, but in soft ground

they sink by their own weight. As they descend, fresh tubs are added,

until the work is finished. When we consider that, in the coal-pits in

the north of England, many shafts have a diameter of as much as fifteen

feet, that in some cases they are sunk to a depth of nearly 300 fathoms,

and that, under the most favourable circumstances, even where tubbing is

not required to guard against the influx of springs, it is necessary to

line almost the whole of the interior with bricks, to prevent the loose

strata from falling or being washed in, we cannot wonder that as much as

100,000l. and ten years of labour have, in some cases, been expended

before the seam of coal has been reached that was to repay all this vast

outlay of capital and time. Unsightly and filthy as such a shaft may be,

it is in reality a great triumph of architectural skill.

In most of our collieries one shaft serves for winding up the coal, for

the passage of the men up and down, for ventilation, and for drainage by

means of the engine-pumps. To answer these various purposes it is

subdivided or bratticed by brick or wooden partitions into two, three,

or four compartments; but this arrangement is very defective, for the

safety of the workmen requires that in every large coal-pit, and indeed

in every mine, there should be at least two separate shafts. When the

partitions of the single shaft become injured or burnt, which has not

unfrequently been the case, the ventilation of the pit may suddenly be

deranged, and many lives have thus been endangered. The obstruction of a

shaft by the breakage of an engine has caused some of the most appalling

tragedies in mining history. On January 10, 1862, the beam of the

pumping engine broke at the Hartley Colliery in the Newcastle coalfield,

and striking, like a huge catapult, with its enormous weight of forty

tons, against the sides of the shaft as it descended, accumulated an

enormous mass of rubbish and broken timbers at the depth of 138 yards

from the surface. Two hundred and four colliers were thus shut out from

all hope of rescue, for no exertion could possibly remove, in time

enough to save them, the vast pile of ruins that obstructed their escape

to the upper world.

The methods of working, winning, or excavating mineral substances

naturally vary, according to the magnitude and direction of the beds,

lodes, or seams in which they are contained. With a vein of moderate

width, as soon as the preparatory labours have brought the miners to the

point of the vein from which the ulterior workings are to ramify, the

first object is to divide the mass of ore into solid rectangular

compartments by means of oblong galleries, generally pierced ten fathoms

below one another, with pits of communication opened up, thirty, forty,

or fifty yards asunder, which follow the slope of the vein. These

galleries and shafts are usually of the same breadth as the vein, unless

when it is very narrow, in which case it is necessary to cut out a

portion of the roof or the floor. Such workings serve at once the

purposes of mining, by affording a portion of ore, and for the complete

investigation of the nature and riches of the vein, a certain extent of

which is thus prepared before removing the cubical masses. It is proper

to advance first of all in this manner to the greatest distance from the

central point which can be mined with economy, and afterwards to remove

the rectangular blocks in working back to that point. This latter

operation may be carried on in two different ways, by attacking the ore

from above or from below. In either case the excavations are disposed in

steps, similar to a stair, upon their upper or under side. The first is

styled a working in _direct_ or descending steps; the second a working

in reverse, or ascending steps. By this method a number of miners are

able to proceed simultaneously without interfering with each other.

In rich lodes and in the case of thick masses, the system of working in

large chambers or extensive excavations, or by transverse attacks, is

employed. Superficial deposits are worked like open quarries.

In British practice, coal is generally worked on the post (or pillar and

stall) system, or on the long-wall system.

The pillar and stall principle is carried out in the working away of a

certain portion of the coal as a first measure, and in leaving the

remainder in pillars, which are either to serve permanently for the

support of the roof, or to be at some future time partially or totally

removed. In the North of England, where this system has been brought to

perfection, it is also named panel-work, because the whole area is

divided into quadrangular panels, each panel containing an area of from

eight to twelve acres, and round each panel is at first left a solid

wall of coal of from forty to fifty yards thick. Through the panel walls

roads and air-courses are driven in order to work the coal contained

within these walls. Thus all the panels are connected together with the

shaft as to roads and ventilation, and each district or panel has a

particular name, so that any circumstance relating to the details of the

colliery can be readily referred to a specified place.

[Illustration: PART OF A COLLIERY LAID OUT IN FOUR PANELS.]

A. Engine shaft: divided F, G. Two panels completed as

into three compartments, to the first work.

an engine pit and two

coal pits.

B, C. Dip head level. D. Panel, with the rooms a a

in regular progress to

the rise.

A, E. The rise or crop gallery. H. Panel fully worked out.

K, K. Panel walls.

By this plan, of which the above illustration gives a distinct idea, the

pillars of a panel may be worked out at any time most suitable for the

economy of the mine, and the loss of coal amounts to no more than about

a tenth, instead of a third or a half by the old methods.

When the pillars of a panel are to be worked out, the most distant range

is first attacked, and as the workmen cut away the furthest pillars,

props of wood are placed between the pavement and the roof, within a few

feet of each other, as shown by the dots at I. This is continued till an

area of one hundred square yards is cleared of pillars. This operation

is termed ‘working the _goaf_.’ The only use of the prop-wood is to

prevent the stratum which forms the ceiling over the workmen’s heads

from falling down and killing them by its splintery fragments.

Experience has proved that before proceeding to take away another set of

pillars, it is necessary to allow the last made goaf to fall. The

workmen then begin to draw out the props. This is a most hazardous

employment. Knocking down the more remote props one after another, they

quickly retreat under the protection of the remaining props. Meanwhile

the roof stratum begins to break by the sides of the pillars and falls

down in immense pieces; while the workmen still persevere, boldly

drawing and retreating till every prop is removed. Nay, should any props

be so firmly fixed by the top pressure that they will not give way to

the blows of heavy mauls, they are cut through with axes, the workmen

making it a point of honour to leave not a single prop in the goaf. If

any props are left, it causes an irregular subsidence of the strata, and

throws more pressure on the adjacent pillars. The miners next proceed to

cut away the pillars nearest to the sides of the goaf, setting prop-

wood, then drawing it, and retreating as before, until every panel is

removed excepting small portions of pillars which require to be left

under dangerous stones, to protect the retreat of the workmen. While

this operation is going forward and the goaf extending, the

superincumbent strata, being exposed without support over a larger area,

break progressively higher up; and when strong beds of sandstone are

thus giving way, the noise of the rending rocks is very peculiar and

terrific; at one time loud and sharp, at another hollow and deep. As the

pillars of the panels are taken away, the panel walls are also worked

progressively backwards to the pit-bottom, so that only a small portion

of the coal is eventually lost.

When mines are fully worked, the main shaft is frequently continued down

to other seams of coal, which are excavated in the same way as the first

seam. In such cases the workings communicate with each other by shafts

called ‘staples,’ which are sunk at intervals between the seams of coal.

[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF MINING OPERATIONS.]

The principle of long-wall working (Shropshire and Derbyshire method) is

the extraction of all the available coal by the single process of first

working, maintaining the roads by means of stone-walls or wooden props.

This system is applicable with advantage only to thin seams which lie

near to the surface, and in which the workings may be of a very limited

extent.

[Illustration:

TOOLS USED BY MINERS IN CORNWALL.

_a._ Pick. _b._ Gad. _c._ Shovel. _d._ Mallet. _e._ Borer. _f._

Claying-bar. _g._ Needle or nail. _h._ Scraper. _i._ Tamping-bar.

]

According to the various hardness of the minerals or of the rocks in

which they are embedded, different means and implements for dividing the

masses are employed. In loose earth, sand, and clay, shovels and

scrapers suffice; in gypsum, coal, and rock-salt, the pick becomes

necessary; in many hard slates, gads must be driven into the small

openings made with the point of the pick. In still harder stones,

forming the great majority of those which occur in veins and strata,

recourse must be had to the explosive power of gunpowder, which is also

largely employed in our coal-mines. The tools used for this purpose are

the borer, an iron bar tipped with steel, formed like a thick chisel,

which is held by one man straight in the hole with constant rotation on

its axis, while another strikes the head of it with the iron sledge or

mallet; the scraper for clearing out the hole from time to time; the

claying-bar, a tapering iron rod, which, after the introduction of some

tenacious clay into the cavity, is forced into it with great violence,

and, condensing the clay into all the crevices of the rock, secures the

dryness of the hole; and the nail, a small taper rod of copper, which,

after the charge has been introduced, is inserted to reach the bottom of

the hole, which is now ready for tamping. For this purpose, any soft

species of rock free from flinty particles, which might provoke a

premature explosion, is introduced in small quantities at a time, and

rammed very hard by the tamping bar, which is held steadily by one man

and struck with a sledge by another. The hole being thus filled, the

nail is withdrawn by putting a bar through its eye and striking it

upwards. Thus a small perforation or vent is left for the safety fuse, a

woven cylinder containing gunpowder, and protected by a coating of tar.

The fire being applied, the men retire to a safe distance.

Often, in order to lose as little time as possible, a number of shots

are fired together, so that the explosions, pouring out their tongues of

flame in rapid succession, and awakening the subterranean echoes far and

wide, afford a highly interesting spectacle. But woe to the miner if he

be too hasty to return to his post, for it often happens that a

treacherous shot goes off several minutes after being lighted, and,

exploding in the face of the imprudent workman, disfigures him for life,

or kills him on the spot.

Accidents in blasting arise also from other causes, such as a negligent

handling of the powder while preparing the charge, or some delay in

retiring after the fuse has been kindled. It was an incident of the

latter kind which some years back called forth the following instance of

heroism.

‘In a certain Cornish mine,’ says Thomas Carlyle,[36] ‘two miners, deep

down in the shaft, were engaged in putting in a shot for blasting; they

had completed their affair, and were about to give the signal for being

hoisted up. One at a time was all their coadjutor at the top could

manage, and the second was to kindle the match and then mount with all

speed. Now it chanced, while they were still below, one of them thought

the match too long, tried to break it shorter, took a couple of stones,

a flat and a sharp, to cut it shorter, did cut it off the due length,

but, horrible to relate, kindled it at the same time, and both were

still below. Both shouted vehemently to the coadjutor at the windlass,

both sprang at the basket; the windlass-man could not move it with them

both. Here was a moment for poor miner Jack and miner Will! Instant

horrible death hangs over both, when Will generously resigns himself.

“Go aloft, Jack, and sit down. Away! In one minute I shall be in

heaven!” Jack bounds aloft, the explosion instantly follows, bruises his

face as he looks over; he is safe above ground; and poor Will?

Descending eagerly, they find poor Will, too, as if by miracle, buried

under rocks which had arched themselves over him, and little injured; he

too is brought up safe; and all ends joyfully, say the newspapers, which

have duly specified the event.

Footnote 36:

‘Life of Sterling,’ p. 278.

‘Such a piece of manly promptitude and salutary human heroism was worth

investigating. It was investigated and found to be accurate to the

letter, with this addition and explanation, that Will Verran, an honest,

ignorant, good man, entirely given up to Methodism, had been perfect in

the “faith of assurance;” certain that _he_ should get to heaven if he

died, certain that Jack Roberts would not, which had been the ground of

his decision in that great moment; for the rest that he much wished to

learn reading and writing, and find some way of life above ground

instead of below. By aid of the Misses Fox and the rest of that family,

a subscription (modest _Anti_-Hudson Testimonial) was raised for this

Methodist hero; he emerged into daylight with fifty pounds in his

pocket; did strenuously try, for certain months, to learn reading and

writing; found he could not learn those arts, or either of them; took

his money and bought cows with it, wedding at the same time some likely

milkmaid.’

Several attempts have recently been made to diminish the dangers of

blasting, by substituting gun-cotton or nitroglycerine for gunpowder; or

by firing charges by means of the electric battery, but hitherto without

much success.

An enormous quantity of gunpowder is consumed for blasting in many of

the larger mines. In 1836, 64,000 pounds were used in the Consolidated

Mines in Cornwall, and 90,100 pounds in the Fowey Consolidated Copper

Mines. The total amount of gunpowder consumed in the Cornish and

Devonian Mines in the year 1837 reached 300 tons, which cost 13,200_l_.

This one item may serve to give some idea of the enormous working

expenses of a large mining concern.

Sometimes the rock is so tenacious as to render boring too tedious and

expensive an operation, and fire becomes necessary for subduing the

solidity of the stone. In this manner the ancient mine of Rammelsberg,

near Goslar, is forced to yield its treasures, and whole forests are

annually consumed in order to loosen the hornstone and indestructible

spar of its metalliferous veins. Every Saturday morning the fire is

applied to the numerous piles of billets and faggots that have been

distributed throughout the course of the week. Those in the upper floors

of exploitation are first burned, in order that the inferior piles may

not obstruct by their vitiated air the combustion of the former. Thus at

four o’clock in the morning the fires are kindled in the upper ranges,

and then from pile to pile the firemen descend towards the lower floor,

which occupies them till three o’clock in the afternoon. The vaults of

Rammelsberg now afford a truly magnificent spectacle. The rising flames,

flickering against the walls of the vaults, and ascending in broad

sheets towards their roof; the dense clouds of smoke rolling towards the

air vents; the crackling of the wood; the loud detonations of the stones

rent by the expansive force of heat from the primitive rock; the lurid

glare of the conflagration; the naked workmen with their mighty

stirring-poles, flitting like dark spirits before the blazing pile; the

intense heat, and the air loaded to suffocation with sulphurous fumes,—

all combine to produce a picture worthy of Dante’s ‘Inferno.’ During the

Sunday the noxious vapours engendered by the conflagration have time to

disperse; and on the Monday morning the workmen detach, with long forks

of iron, the ores that have been loosened by the flames.

The ore being extracted from its bed, it becomes necessary to bring it

to the light of day, an operation which is of course of the greatest

importance, and not seldom requires the aid of complicated machinery,

particularly in coal mines, where large masses have to be conveyed as

economically and speedily as possible to the upper world.

A great improvement has been effected of late years in the facility of

transporting minerals underground, by the introduction of small

tramroads, and the saving of expense thus effected sometimes amounts to

one-half the former cost. Many of our larger mines are provided with

miles of this subterranean railroad, and the advantage is greater,

because for the most part there is a slight descent from the workings to

the bottom of the shaft, to allow of a more complete system of drainage

than could otherwise be attained. But frequently where the galleries are

low, narrow, and crooked, the carriage is still effected by means of

sledges, barrows, or little waggons, which are with difficulty dragged

or pushed along, over planks or uneven and muddy roads; and sometimes

even the interior transport of the ore is executed on the backs of men—a

most disadvantageous practice, which is gradually wearing out.

[Illustration: CONVEYANCE OF MINERALS UNDERGROUND.]

In great mines, such as the coal and salt mines of Great Britain, the

salt mines of Wielitzka, the copper mines of Fahlun, the lead mines of

Alston Moor, horses have long been introduced into the workings, to drag

heavier waggons, or a train of waggons attached to one another. In some

cases these animals are brought to the surface at stated intervals, but

generally when once let down the pit they for ever bid adieu to the

light of day. Strange to say, this _unnatural_ mode of existence, which

would soon undermine the vigour and spirits of man, agrees admirably

well with their health, of which the greatest care is taken, as their

useful services are duly appreciated by their owners. They are

abundantly fed with hay and oats of the best quality; their stalls are

large and well ventilated; and as they labour in a mild and equable

temperature, they remain free from many complaints to which horses are

liable. Their good condition and sleek, shining coats prove that they

have no sentimental longing for green fields or the bright sunshine. In

a few of the largest collieries it has been found advantageous to

establish underground stationary engines, which bring the trains of

waggons, by means of an endless rope, along the galleries to the bottom

of the shaft. In other mines, such as those of Worsley in Lancashire,

subterranean canals are cut, upon which the mineral is transported in

boats.

In the European mines, the ores are usually lifted from the bottom of

the shaft to the surface by steam-power, or horse-gins; but in Spanish

America, men, and even women, are employed for this purpose. The steep

ladders which they ascend with heavy weights upon their backs, consist

merely of the thick trunks of fir-trees, into which, at intervals of

every ten or eleven inches, deep notches have been cut; but these rude

steps are mounted with perfect security and ease by the sure-footed

Indians.

In many European mines, where the workmen are let down or raised by

means of ropes, wire cables, or chains, they sometimes sit on transverse

round pieces of wood or in a kind of chair, consisting of two strong

leather belts, one of which serves as a seat, and the other for

supporting the back. In Wielitzka ten of these chairs are attached to

the cable at distances of seven or eight feet one from another. The

persons seated in the uppermost and lowest chairs direct the descent,

and take great care to prevent the conveyance grazing against the sides

of the shaft, for were it to be hooked fast by a nail or any other

projection, a fall into a deep precipice of several hundred feet would

be the almost inevitable and fatal consequence. The old method of

descending into a colliery was by a corf or strong basket, hooked on by

a chain to the rope that hung down the shaft. Stepping into this, the

men would swing down the dark hollow, gaily and readily, but not always

safely.

Thus, in the year 1835, in a colliery near Liège, seven workmen were

already seated in a corf that was about to descend into the shaft, when

one of their comrades, anxious to seize the opportunity, came hurrying

along, and, in spite of all remonstrances, jumped into it; but the rope,

unable to bear the shock and the increased weight, suddenly snapped, and

all eight were precipitated into the abyss, from which not one of them

came forth alive.

In the Swedish mines small barrels or tuns are generally used as

vehicles of descent, and the workmen are uncommonly dexterous in

preventing their little aërial skiff from striking against the rugged

rock-walls, when it would run the danger of being wrecked. Women, and

even children, who find occupation in the mines, are often seen standing

on the narrow edge of one of these swinging, turning, or oscillating

tuns, with an arm slung round the rope; and such is the power of habit

that they will quietly knit where even a stout-nerved man would be

appalled by the frowning cliffs above or the black abyss below.

In the year 1785 a girl, descending alone into the pit of Fahlun, and

unable to direct the tun, could not prevent it from striking against a

rock. Jerked out of her conveyance by the violence of the shock, she

fell upon a narrow ledge, about one hundred feet from the bottom of the

pit, to which she clung with all the energy of despair. Her position was

indeed terrific, for the least motion would have precipitated her into

the dark grave which seemed to yawn for her reception, and to have given

her but a momentary respite in order to make her feel more bitterly the

pangs of approaching death. Already her strength was giving way, already

a cloud swam before her eyes, when some bold miners, venturing their own

lives in the hazardous undertaking, succeeded in rescuing her from her

awful position, and snatching her as it were from the very jaws of

death.

Another method much adopted, and preferred by the pitmen in our

collieries, was passing down and up in the loop. The pitman inserted one

leg into a loop formed by curving the terminal chain and hooking it back

upon an upper link, and then twined his arm tightly round the rope

above. In this way he descended through any depth, and, as he alleged,

with greater safety than in a bucket, out of which he might be ejected,

while nothing except the breaking of the rope could harm him in loop.

At present the safety-cage is generally used. This is simply a vertical

railway carriage running down and up upon guides, and thereby

introducing into the shaft the improvements of the iron road. Into one

of its square narrow compartments two or three men crouch together,

others get into an upper compartment, and down the cage moves easily and

safely, the men needing only to take care that hands or fingers do not

hang beyond the edge, while four or five minutes of easy motion carry

them down a thousand or fifteen hundred feet below the surface of the

earth.

[Illustration: MINERS DESCENDING SHAFT IN OWEN’S SAFETY CAGE.]

In many mines the workmen climb up and down the shafts on fixed ladders,

with landing-stages for resting; and it may easily be imagined how

severely their strength must be taxed when, after their hard day’s

labour, they have still to ascend step by step a thousand or even two

thousand feet, before they can return to their families. Some of the

Cornish mines require a full hour to rise from the lowest depths to

‘grass,’ and besides this considerable loss of time, diseases of the

lungs and heart, which often terminate fatally, or prematurely make the

miner an invalid, are the consequence of these fatiguing journeys.

‘O thou grumbling clerk in London city,’ exclaims the author of

‘Cornwall and its Mines,’[37] ‘whose daily fatigues only extend to the

ascent into and descent from the trim omnibus that takes you to or from

Peckham or Kennington! Only think for a moment of travelling some four

or five times the height of St. Paul’s daily—before and after work! O

thou querulous socialist, demagogue, or artisan, who canst sit in a

comfortable coffee-house, under a flaming gas-light, immediately before

and after work—or in your own snug parlour, by your own fireside or

murmuring kettle—do but think for a moment of the Cornish miner, and

what he must do before he can reach home or house! I fully believe that

the best cure for discontent and gloom in fortunate workmen would be to

put them upon the treadmill of a deep Cornish mine—for a temporary

treadmill it is.’

Footnote 37:

London: Longmans, 1857.

It had long been deemed of the utmost importance to devise some easier

mode of locomotion; but it was not till 1833 that the circumstance of

two water-wheels having been thrown out of work by the opening of the

deep Georg Adit in the Hartz mines suggested the idea of employing the

pump-rods for aiding the ascent of the miners. The trial was first made

with a portion of one hundred fathoms. This was divided into twenty-two

portions; and on each portion iron steps were fixed, at intervals of

four feet, while hand-holds were fixed at convenient distances. A

reciprocating motion of four feet was given to each rod, and the miners

stepped to and fro from a bracket or ledge on one rod to the parallel

one on the other. As one rod is always descending while the other is

ascending, and _vice versâ_, it is easy to understand how this alternate

stepping on to the little platforms must lead to the ascent or descent

of the miner. At the division between each two of the twenty-two

portions, there is a larger platform on which he may rest awhile; and

nothing is lost by his rest, for the reciprocal motion goes on, and is

ready again for his use when he is ready for it. This first machine

surpassed expectation. Short as the length of ascent was, many invalids

of the district were now able to resume their underground labours, as

the fatigue of mounting or descending was reduced, by the alternate

action of the machinery, to a mere easy lateral motion.

The advantages of this new method in saving both time and power were so

obvious that it was soon imitated in the other deep metalliferous veins

of the Hartz; and at present power-ladders or _man-engines_ of an

improved construction, such as the substitution of a single rod for the

double apparatus above described, are in very general use over the

Continent, whence they have passed in a modified form into Cornwall,

where they are worked by steam. In Fowey Consols Mine the machine

extends to a depth of 1,680 feet. The rod is eight inches square, with

twelve-inch platforms at intervals of twelve feet; and there are

stationary platforms equidistant at the side of the shaft. When a miner

is about to descend the steps on a movable platform, the rod descends

and carries him down twelve feet; he steps upon a fixed platform while

the rod rises again; he then steps upon another movable platform, and

descends another twelve feet, and so on to the bottom. In ascending,

there is simply a reversed process. It is a very interesting sight to

witness the ascent or descent of bodies of miners at certain hours of

the day and night. You see them passing each other in the shafts, in a

kind of zig-zag course, of as great regularity as any zig-zag will

permit. As one miner steps off the rod platform to one fixed platform,

another steps on to it from another fixed platform on the other side.

Thus there are two streams of miners moving in opposite directions along

the same rod at the same time, and this curious spectacle is rendered

doubly pleasing when we consider how much distressing toil has been

alleviated by the employment of the man-engine. Machinery constructed on

the same principle has been latterly adopted in the mines of Anzin, for

transporting the coal step by step to the surface; and it is evident

that when coal mines are worked at greater depths than at present,

ropes, however strong, will no longer be able to sustain even their own

weight, and the whole transport up and down a shaft of perhaps 3,000 or

3,500 feet must be performed by means of similar machines.

[Illustration: TIMBERING OF A MINE.]

Wherever the excavated rock is not hard or solid enough to bear the

superincumbent weight, the galleries of a mine must necessarily be

supported by timbering or walling. Timbering is most used, frequently in

the form represented in the annexed woodcut; and when we consider how

miles upon miles of galleries are thus supported, we can easily imagine

that whole forests must be engulfed in our mines. It has been calculated

that for the total quantity of timber in use for mining purposes in

Cornwall, it would require no less than 140 square miles of forest of

Norwegian pine, averaging a growth of 120 years. The expense thus

incurred is enormous; the cost for timber, duty free, in Cornish and

Devon mines, amounted in 1836 to 94,138_l._ and is probably still larger

at the present time. For timbering, no tree is more esteemed than the

larch or the Norwegian pine, on account of its great durability in the

wet; but whatever wood may be employed, it is necessary to peel off the

bark, experience having shown that unless this is done the wood rots

much more easily, as the fibres of the rind attract a far greater

quantity of moisture than the smooth surface of the splint. Like the

potato and the grape, subterranean timbering is exposed to the attacks

of a fungus, producing what is called dry-rot. The parasite germinates

in the sap which remains in the wood, or at least derives its

nourishment from it. Its vegetation is at first scarcely perceptible;

but soon its white fibres multiply, and form at length small sponges on

the surface. The decomposition of the wood now advances with rapid

strides, and terminates at last in the total destruction of the ligneous

fibres. Not satisfied with depriving the roof of its support, the dry-

rot likewise produces a vitiation of the air, so that wherever timbering

is employed, it is reckoned among the great enemies of the mine and of

the miner. Many remedies have been recommended, among which _kyanizing_,

or saturating the wood with a solution of corrosive sublimate, is one of

the most efficacious, though unfortunately too expensive to be of

universal use. Mushrooms of various kinds likewise flourish upon the

moist surface of the spars, and various insects collect near this

parasitic vegetation.

[Illustration: TRANSVERSE SECTIONS OF WALLED DRAIN GALLERIES.]

The timbering of a mine also affords very convenient lurking-places to

the numerous rats which are met with underground, where they contrive to

live upon the crumbs or offal of the miners’ meals, or upon candle-ends

and remains of wicks. Not seldom the timbering of a gallery, weakened by

rot, gives way under the pressure of the roof, which falls in with a

tremendous crash, and sometimes buries the unfortunate miner under its

ruins. Another disadvantage attending timbering is its liability to

catch fire, and thus, wherever the cost is not found too great, the

chief galleries of a mine are now usually constructed of stone.

Sometimes the two sides of a gallery are lined with vertical walls, and

its roof is supported by an ogival vault or an arch. If the sides of the

mine are solid, a simple arch is sufficient to sustain the roof; and at

other times the whole surface of a gallery is formed of a single

elliptic vault, the great axis of which is vertical, and the bottom is

surmounted by a wooden plank, under which the waters run off.

[Illustration:

DRAINAGE OF A MINE BY ADIT LEVELS.

_a._ Shaft. _b._ Shallow adit. _c._ Deep adit. _d._ Mineral lode.

]

The miner is generally in a state of perpetual warfare with the water,

which threatens to inundate the scene of his labours; and as in a leaky

ship the pumps must be kept continually working to prevent the vessel

from sinking, so here also perpetual efforts are necessary to keep off

the encroachments of this never-tiring foe. When a mine is situated

above the level of a valley or of the neighbouring sea, its drainage may

be effected in a comparatively easy manner by means of sloping

galleries, dry-levels or adits, which in many cases serve also for the

transport of the ore or coal. In some mines these drainage levels are

executed on a truly gigantic scale. Thus the Great Cornish Adit, which

extends through the large mining district of Gwennap, begins in the

valley above Carnon, and receives the branch adits of fifty mines in the

parish of Gwennap, forming excavations and ramifications which have an

aggregate extent of between thirty and forty miles, and which are in

some places 400 feet below the surface of the ground. The longest branch

is from Cardrew mine, and is five and a half miles in length. This great

adit opens into the sea at Restronget Creek, and empties its waters into

Falmouth Harbour.

A similar great drain is Nent Force Level, in the north of England,

which drains the numerous mines in Alston Moor. It consists of a

stupendous aqueduct nine feet broad, and in some places from sixteen to

twenty feet high. For more than three miles it passes under the course

of the river Nent, to Nentsbury engine-shaft, and is navigated

underground by long narrow boats. At the distance of a mile in the

interior, daylight is seen at its mouth like a star, and this star is

continually enlarging upon you until you find yourself in open daylight.

The ramifications of the Great Adit Levels of the mines of Freiberg in

Saxony have a total length of seventy-two miles; but the most stupendous

works of this description are those in the district of Clausthal and

Zellerfeld, in the Hartz, where, as the mining operations have been

carried on deeper and deeper, adits have been successively driven below

adits. Four of these levels date from times previous to the seventeenth

century; but, as they were found insufficient, the famous Georg Stollen

was added to their number in 1777. This gigantic tunnel, which, piercing

the hard rock, required twenty-three years for its completion, is above

five miles long, and passes 900 feet below the church of Clausthal. It

serves the double purpose of a draining gallery and of a navigable

canal. The water is always kept at a height of from fifty to sixty

inches; and the boats, which carry about five tons, are propelled by

means of a chain attached to the vault, along which the boatmen drag or

push them forward. In this economical manner about 20,000 tons of ore

are annually brought to daylight. The boats are made and repaired in a

subterranean wharf, which, though far from being one of the largest, may

probably boast of being the deepest.

Until 1851 the Georg Stollen answered all the purposes for which it was

constructed, but at the end of that period the increased depth and

extension of the mines rendered necessary the addition of a new great

adit level, which has been named the ‘Ernst August Stollen,’ in honour

of the late king of Hanover. In spite of its vast dimensions, this

magnificent work, which is six and three-quarter miles long, about ten

feet high, and six and a half broad, required only thirteen years for

its completion, and may justly be considered as one of the triumphs of

modern engineering. The excavation was begun simultaneously at ten

different points, and such was the admirable precision of the plans that

all the junctions of the different sections of the gallery fitted

accurately into each other.

Below the Ernst August Gallery (437 yards), the form of the country

allows no deeper adit level to be driven; but to provide for the

increasing vertical extension of the workings, a new underground

gallery, without any opening to the surface, and at a depth of 262 yards

below the former, is already in contemplation. The water is to be raised

to the Ernst August Level by a special hydraulic machine placed in a

vertical shaft, which will serve at the same time for raising the ore

and for the passage of the miners. The expense is calculated at about

60,000_l._ but will be amply repaid by the new field of mineral wealth

which it will open. Thus in the Hartz one magnificent work is but the

precursor of another.

When a mine is so situated that drainage galleries cannot be

established, engines must be employed for pumping up the waters. Thus,

in Cornwall, where most of the copper mines open almost at the sea

level, an enormous influx of water can be kept in check only by an

equally enormous steam-power. In the United and Consolidated Mines

between Truro and Redruth, seven steam-pumps, working with the united

strength of 2,000 horses, are kept constantly in motion, and raise above

2,500,000 gallons of water in twenty-four hours.

In 1837 the whole quantity of water pumped out of the earth by sixty

Cornish engines attained the amazing aggregate of close upon thirty-

seven millions of tons; but since then mining has been carried on more

extensively and deeper, and consequently additional steam-power has

become necessary to keep pace with the increasing waters.

‘Even to the eye of an observer who is practised in machinery[38] of

great magnitude, the first sight and the subsequent examination of such

engines is very gratifying. To watch the labour of a giant would be

interesting; but to see the giant not only labouring at ease amidst his

enormous work but at the same time at the command of a child, who should

be able to stop him at any moment—this would be doubly interesting. Such

is the case with the great Cornish engines, for even the largest of them

may be stopped by a child of ten or twelve years of age. Another

peculiar feature, too, of these engines is this, that they work with a

quietness—or absence of clash and clatter—which is in the inverse ratio

of their magnitude. The water makes a great rush in the pumps, but the

engine itself is calm and comparatively noiseless—like a great mountain

reposing in calm greatness while a perpetual spring brawls at its feet.’

Footnote 38:

‘Cornwall, its Mines and Miners.’

In the coal-fields of the North equally gigantic efforts must be made to

keep down the water.

In sinking to the coal at Dalton-le-Dale, eight or nine miles from

Durham, the borers penetrated the vast bed of sand beneath the magnesian

limestone, which appears to contain the chief subterranean water-stores

of the district. In this case their outburst was truly terrific,

amounting, on June 1, 1840, to the enormous quantity of 3,285 gallons

every minute. To oppose this formidable enemy the spirited proprietors

of the mine at once proceeded to erect the necessary steam-power for

pumping off 3,000 or 4,000 gallons a minute; but, the waters still

increasing, it became necessary to meet them with a double and treble

force, so that finally the floods had to be kept down by steam engines

of an aggregate power equivalent to 1,584 horses and setting twenty-

seven sets of pumps in motion.

Sometimes the influx of water into a coal mine is so enormous that no

human contrivance can oppose it, and man is obliged to give up the

conflict in despair. During the progress of the attempted winning of a

pit at Haswell in the county of Durham, the engine power erected pumped

out the water to the amount of 26,700 tons per day; but still the floods

came in, and at last won the victory.

From the same cause many collieries have been closed, of late years, on

the banks of the Tyne, and among these the famous Wallsend Colliery,

which has given its name to the best kinds of coal.

The drowning of a coal mine not seldom occurs from the irruption of

water accumulated in old wastes or ancient workings occupying a higher

level in the vicinity. The growing pressure of such a body of water upon

the beds or barriers below becomes enormous; and then the water, testing

every weak point of the body opposed to its escape, at length

unexpectedly rushes into the space which it finds open before it. All

the works below are completely filled, and the mines are for a time

rendered useless, or, it may be, for ever abandoned. This was the cause,

in 1815, of the celebrated accident at Heaton, near Newcastle-on-Tyne,

in which ninety lives were lost. The water flowed from two adjoining old

collieries which had been abandoned seventy years before. A barrier of

six feet withstood a pressure of thirty fathoms of water. But an

irruption was aided at last by a natural fissure of the rock, and the

catastrophe followed before any adequate protection could be interposed.

About thirty years later a tremendous calamity of the like kind, after

an outlay of 100,000_l._, totally ruined the Baghilt coal mines, in

Wales. The water came from adjoining mines, which had been long

abandoned.

If correct plans and descriptions of all the ancient workings had been

preserved, these accidents, which happen frequently, might easily be

prevented, as an exact knowledge of the localities would enable the

owners to leave sufficiently strong barriers in parts where they are now

often most inadequate. Such is the importance of accurate mining records

that thousands of pounds would be freely given at this moment by many

owners for a knowledge of old works of which no plan exists and which no

memory can now recall. Fortunately, the legislature has now taken steps

to introduce a system of registration such as has already existed long

ago in Prussia, Austria, and Belgium, and which, at least, will answer

the purpose of obtaining greater security for the future.

Sometimes an enormous fall of rain, descending on the neighbouring

country, finds its way into the mines through fissures in the ground or

by breaking through galleries, and causes irreparable mischief;

sometimes even a whole river bursts into the works and ruins them for

ever. Thus, in 1856, the South Tamar Consols, in Devonshire, was flooded

by the giving way of the bed of the Tamar, under which the workings were

carried.

Even the Sea has been known to take fatal vengeance for the undermining

of her domain.

Workington Colliery extended to the distance of 1,500 yards under the

Irish Channel, and the workings, being driven considerably to the rise,

were brought at length within fifteen fathoms of the bottom of the sea.

The pillars of coal which supported the overlying strata were hardly

strong enough to support the roof, but the imprudence of a manager eager

to produce a larger quantity of coal weakened even this insufficient

support by working it partly away. Heavy falls of the roof, accompanied

by discharges of salt water, gave repeated warnings of the impending

catastrophe, which took place on July 30, 1837. So violent was the

irruption that many persons at a distance of hundreds of yards observed

the whirlpool commotion of the sea as it rushed into the gulf beneath.

Some few workmen near the shaft had time to escape, but thirty-six men

and boys and as many horses were destroyed by the waters, which in a few

hours entirely filled the excavations, the extension of which had tasked

the labour of years.

The heroic devotion of a miner has invested with a more than ordinary

interest the inundation of the mine of Beaujonc, near Liège, which took

place on February 28, 1812. One hundred and twenty-seven persons were in

the pit when the waters burst in from some old workings. Thirty-five had

time to make their escape through the shaft; twenty-two were drowned in

their eagerness to reach it; the majority, severed from the upper world

by an impassable gulf, remained behind. Hubert Goffin, the overman,

could have ascended in the tub; but, though the father of six children,

his sense of duty would not allow him to desert his post, and he

resolved to save all his men or to perish with them. As the rising

waters forced the prisoners to seek a higher level, the boys burst out

weeping and the boldest began to despair; but Goffin revived their

courage by reminding them that their friends without would make every

effort to save them. As one day after another passed, the prisoners

suffered all the horrors of hunger, which some of them endeavoured to

appease by devouring the candles they had brought with them. Others went

to the water in the hopes of finding the body of some drowned comrade.

Two of the pitmen quarrelled, and were on the point of coming to blows.

‘Let them fight,’ said the others; ‘if one of them is killed we will eat

him’—a declaration which at once put an end to the dispute. To satisfy

their thirst they had nothing but the foul water of the pit. Some made

vows to all the saints, others complained in their delirium that they

had to wait for their meals. In the midst of these scenes of horror,

Goffin alone retained his courage, and, exhorting, consoling,

encouraging, and reproving on all sides, appeared as the guardian angel

of his despairing comrades.

Meanwhile every effort was being made from without to bring them

succour. Although as soon as the accident took place the pumps were

incessantly at work, the water had risen to a height of 14 metres in the

shaft on the following morning, and as it was still rising there was

reason to fear that the captives, blocked up in a constantly narrowing

space, would soon be suffocated. It was resolved to strike a gallery

from the neighbouring pit of Mamouster to Beaujonc, a distance of 175

metres. Unfortunately, only two men could hew at a time, but such was

the ardour with which the work was prosecuted that on the morning of

March 4 a shout of triumph announced that the longed-for communication

was effected, and that the prisoners were alive. Crawling through the

narrow passage, they were wrapped up in woollen blankets and

strengthened with soup and wine before being hoisted to the surface.

Goffin and his son, a lad of twelve, were the last to leave the pit; as

a brave sea captain, after some great catastrophe, never thinks of his

own safety till he has satisfied himself of that of his men. With the

exception of those who were drowned immediately after the accident took

place, all were saved. The joy of some families, the despair of others,

may be imagined when the final count was made. As a reward for Goffin’s

admirable conduct, he was decorated with the cross of the Legion of

Honour and received a pension of 600 francs. Nine years later he was

killed by an explosion of fire-damp, and thus the hostile elements with

which he had so long waged a successful war triumphed over him at last.

The sudden irruption of an immense body of water into a mine naturally

causes a compression of the air in those galleries which are cut off

from all communication with the shaft. This pressure, which may rise to

three or four atmospheres—or, in other words, may be three or four times

greater than that of the external air—not only produces symptoms of

suffocation and cerebral congestion in the unfortunate miners who are

exposed to it, but, forcing its way through fissures in the roof or

violently rupturing it, sometimes produces the effect of an explosion of

gunpowder, throwing the earth to a distance, and even overturning

houses. One of the most interesting of the accidents of this kind on

record occurred in 1833, in an extensive Scotch colliery, into which the

waters of the river Garnock had broken through a cavity in its bed. As

the stream poured into the mine the opening gradually enlarged, until at

length the whole body of the river plunged into the excavations beneath.

The river was affected by the tides, and this engulfment took place at

low water; but as the tide rose the sea entered with prodigious force,

until the whole workings, extending for many miles, were completely

filled. No sooner, however, had this taken place, than the pressure of

the water in the pits became so great that the confined air, which had

been forced back into the high workings, burst through the surface of

the earth in a thousand places, and many acres of ground were seen to

bubble up like the boiling of a cauldron. Great quantities of sand and

water were also thrown up, like showers of rain, during a period of five

hours, and an extensive tract of land was laid waste.

Besides the danger of being crushed to death by a fall of rock, or

immured in a living tomb by an obstruction of the shaft or an irruption

of water, the miner has another, and often still more formidable, enemy

to encounter in the noxious gases frequently evolved in coal-pits. Thus

in all well-regulated mines the greatest attention is paid to

ventilation, so that no part of the workings may be left without a

proper supply of air. In ordinary cases the natural currents, which set

in different directions through the shafts and galleries, may

sufficiently purify the atmosphere; but in the coal mines which are

peculiarly subject to the evolution of foul gases, artificial or

mechanical means must be resorted to for driving away the hurtful

vapours as quickly as they form. To establish a proper air current, the

usual method is to keep a large fire continually burning at the bottom

of one of the two shafts of the pit, or of one of the two compartments

of the single shaft, and the difference of temperature thus caused

between the column of air of the _upcast_ shaft and the _downcast_

becomes the motive power which impels or drags the air current in

obedience to it.[39] Yet this meets but half the difficulty; for the air

current, which naturally tends to the shortest passage, must be forced

to do its duty in every corner of the pit, and not suffered to escape

through the upcast shaft before it has performed the longest circuit.

For this purpose a great number of mechanical contrivances are adopted,

in the shape of ‘stoppings,’ of brick, or wood, or stone, all so placed

as to divert

Footnote 39:

Mr. Samuel Plimsoll (‘Letters on the Iron Trade,’ _Times_, February

10, 1868) informs us that in the Belgian coal mines the ventilation is

carried on in a more economical and effective manner. Here no furnaces

are lighted at the bottom of the _upcast_, because one-twentieth of

the coal required for a furnace will make steam for an engine to work

fans which act somewhat in the manner of huge paddle-wheels in steam-

ships, and by rapid rotation over the shaft produce a draught which

the incoming air rushes to meet, and thus powerfully promote

ventilation. These fans they can work and control, and are therefore

independent of those atmospheric influences to which some of our

greatest calamities have been ascribed—the damp, heavy atmosphere of

early winter. In the great colliery of Sacrée Madame, near Charleroi,

one of these fans will draw 34,000 cubic metres (about 918,000 cubic

feet) per minute.

and drive the air current into the several galleries of the pit, and to

make it perform every kind of complex movement, from turning back upon

its own right or left to turning over in a somersault upon itself. The

most curious and admirably simple contrivance is that of splitting the

air by means of a wooden erection, which meets and cuts the current in

two, and sends one part on the one hand and another on the other hand.

In fact, what is commonly practised in minutely irrigating a meadow is

also effected in thoroughly airing a mine. We may form some idea of the

underground travels which the air is thus obliged to perform, by being

forced along from split to split, when we hear that at Hetton Colliery

the ventilating current in the total equals no less than 196,000 cubic

feet of air per minute circulating through the mine at a velocity of 18

feet 3 inches per second.

The foul gases or damps evolved in mines are either heavy or light. The

most remarkable of the former is the _choke-damp_, or _black-damp_, the

name given by the miners to carbonic acid gas. From its great specific

gravity (1·527), this gas rests on the floor of the mine and gradually

accumulates, having no tendency to escape beyond a slow mixture which

takes place with atmospheric air; while the light _fire-damp_, or

carburetted hydrogen, which, though not immediately fatal when breathed,

explodes on the slightest contact with flame, tends to rise to the

surface. The quantity of fire-damp which is poured out into the workings

of some mines is very considerable, and constantly varying. Some seams

of coal are much more full of it than others, and in working these,

which are technically called _fiery seams_, it is not uncommon for a jet

of inflammable air to issue out at every hole made for the reception of

the gunpowder before blasting.

In the celebrated Wallsend Colliery, in an attempt made to work the

Bensham Seam (an attempt which ended in a fearful accident), Mr. Buddle

said, in evidence before a committee of the House of Commons:—‘I simply

drilled a hole into the solid coal, stuck a tin pipe into the aperture,

surrounded it with clay, and lighted it. I had immediately a gas light.

The quantity evolved from the coal was such that in every one of those

places I had nothing to do but to apply a candle, and then could set a

thousand pipes on fire. The whole face of the working was a gas-pipe

from every pore of coal.’

The force with which the gas escapes on some occasions from clefts or

joints is so great as to prove much previous compression. These sudden

outbursts are locally termed _blowers_. Their issues and effects are

surprising. In one minute they have been known to foul the air to a

distance of 300 yards, and their noise is described as like that of

rushing waters, or the roar of a blast furnace. They are not merely

dangerous from their inflammable vapours, but also from the pieces of

coal which their tension not seldom forces from the roof, and whose fall

maims or kills the unfortunate workmen beneath.

The fire-damp is very liable to accumulate in old workings, or _goaves_,

which thus, unless completely isolated by stone and mortar, become a

highly dangerous neighbourhood to the other parts of the mine. The

immense quantity of gas evolved from a goaf of about five acres in

Wallsend old pit affords a striking example of the danger of all such

accumulations. A four-inch metallic pipe was conducted from the bottom

of the pit to the surface of the ground and a few feet above it, when, a

light being applied, a hissing streamer of flame flashed forth and

burned night and day. The amount of gas thus drawn off from the mine was

at first computed at about 15,000 hogsheads in twenty-four hours. Long

did the little pipe continue to pour out in streaming flame thousands

upon thousands of hogsheads of escaping fire-damp. The total issue might

have illuminated a little town.

The explosion of inflammable gas is the most fearful enemy the collier

has to encounter. Three or four cubic inches of carburetted hydrogen,

when ignited, produce a detonation like that of a pistol-shot; half a

cubic foot, enclosed in a bottle and set fire to, shivers the bottle

into fragments; hence we may judge how terrific the effects must be when

a blower pours forth its thousands of cubic feet into the galleries of a

mine, and the careless approach of a light lets loose the demons of

destruction. The explosion of a large subterranean powder magazine would

not be more terrific. Often without a moment’s warning the unfortunate

pitman is scorched and shrivelled to a blackened mass, or is literally

shattered to pieces against the rugged sides of the mine.

[Illustration: SAFETY LAMP.]

It may easily be imagined that many efforts have been made, and many

contrivances suggested, to disarm the fire-damp of its terrors; but Sir

Humphry Davy’s safety-lamp was the first invention which successfully

coped with it. The power of the safety-lamp lies in the _non-

communication of explosions through small apertures_, and the discovery

of this natural law, as well as its practical application, is one of the

greatest exploits of Sir Humphry Davy. A cylinder an inch and a half in

diameter and seven inches long, formed of wire gauze, with 784 apertures

to the square inch, surrounds the light of the lamp. When the miner,

armed with this apparatus, enters an atmosphere tainted with fire-damp,

a light blue flame fills the cylinder; but, as if chained by some magic

power, it is unable to transgress its bounds; and as in our Zoological

Gardens we quietly view the beasts of the forest behind their iron

grating, so the miner looks calmly upon his powerless foe.

Unfortunately, the negligence or the obstinate and blind perversity of

the miner too often renders even this splendid invention ineffectual.

The safety-lamp requires to be kept in perfect order, and unless certain

precautions are taken while using it, it loses its protecting power.

Thus, although perfectly secure when at rest, it seems certain that the

rapid motion communicated by the swing of the arm during a hurried

transit through the mine has in many cases produced an explosion.

Blowing out the lamp is likewise attended with danger, as the flame is

then easily driven through the gauze, and, like a tiger escaping from

his den, may spread terror and havoc around; but the chief cause of

accidents consists in the small quantity of light diffused by the

safety-lamp, and the consequent dislike acquired by the miners to its

use.

Though in all well-regulated coal-pits one or several workmen are

exclusively employed in keeping the lamps in the most perfect order,

though they are handed to the miners burning and well closed, and fines

are imposed upon any attempt to remove the gauze, yet the best

regulations cannot possibly exclude the chance of accident resulting

from the almost inconceivable carelessness of men whose daily tasks lead

them into imminent danger. Thus it is a melancholy but unquestionable

fact that the number of accidents from fire-damp since the introduction

of the Davy lamp has been many more in a given number of years than

before that invention. This has, no doubt, partly arisen from the larger

number of persons employed on the whole; but it is to be feared that it

has chiefly happened from dangerous portions of a mine being taken into

work which without the _Davy_ could not have been attempted, and partly

also from the extreme carelessness of the workmen in removing the wire

gauze.[40]

Footnote 40:

Recent improvements have done much to render the Davy lamp a more

perfect instrument of safety. These more or less insure increased

illumination, prevention of bad usage by locking, and more perfect

combustion. By an ingenious contrivance, one of these improved lamps

cannot be opened without previous extinguishment.

Unfortunately, the fatal effects of this rashness are not confined to

the foolhardy miner who thus casts away the shield that preserves him

from danger, but generally extend to many of his innocent comrades. In

the year 1856 an explosion which took place in the Cymmer coal-pit

killed 110 persons, and in the year 1857 170 workmen in the Lundshill

colliery were swept from life to death with the rapidity of lightning.

In the year 1858 the fire-damp levied a contribution of 215 victims in

the coal-pits of England, while in 1859 it was satisfied with 95. But in

1860, as if to make up for this deficiency, it raged with double

violence; for, after having already claimed a tribute of 80 lives, the

dreadful explosion which took place in the Risca Colliery on December 1

destroyed no less than 142 men and boys. The fire-damp explosion which

occurred at the Oaks Colliery in 1866 swept away the unprecedented

number of 361 victims, and in the same year 91 workmen perished from the

same cause at Talk-o’-th’-Hill Colliery.

In these dreadful catastrophes the most terrible agent of destruction is

not always the burning and concussion of the actual blast of fire-damp,

but the choke-damp which succeeds the explosion. For the carbon of the

inflammable gas, uniting with the oxygen of the air, produces that

deadly poison, carbonic acid gas, which, from the disturbed ventilation

of the pit, soon spreads far and wide through the galleries; so that the

poor colliers who are caught in an exploded pit have two chances of

death against them—one from burning, and the other from suffocation. The

effect of death by the one gas or the other is very distinctly seen in

the countenances of the dead. The men killed by the fire-damp are marked

with burns and scorching, and their features are more or less distorted

or disfigured. On the other hand, where men have been suffocated by

choke-damp, their features are placid and simply inanimate. The fragile

and faulty separations (whether doors or stoppings of any kind) having

been broken down, there is an end to a hope of safe retreat even for men

totally unharmed by the flames, for at once the air takes the shortest

course between the entrance and exit, and leaves the shattered parts

unventilated. Whatever after-damp is then and there generated exerts its

effects in full, and those who cannot rush to the shaft are suffocated.

In the explosion at Risca it was declared by the surgeon to the pit that

of those who were killed no less than seventy persons died from the

effects of after-damp who had not been near the fire. In the great

Haswell explosion, several years since, seventy-one deaths out of

ninety-five were occasioned by choke-damp; and at the explosion in the

Middle Dyffryn Pit in 1852 no less than seven-eighths of the deaths

proceeded from this cause. Persons of great experience attribute at

least seventy per cent. of the deaths in fiery mines to after-damp,

while some advance them even to ninety per cent.

After relating so many frightful disasters, too frequently caused by

imprudence and rashness, it is a more pleasing task to mention a few

instances of warnings taken in time. At Walker Colliery on the Tyne, in

the year 1846, a huge mass of coal weighing about eleven tons was forced

from its bed, and a great discharge of gas succeeded. Two men who were

furnished with Davy lamps were working where this discharge took place;

one of them had his lamp covered with the falling coal, and the other

had his extinguished. They groped their way to warn the other miners,

and then all, extinguishing their lamps as they went, safely escaped to

the bottom of the shaft, and were drawn up.

A few months after a second discharge from another part of the same

colliery took place. A bore-hole having been made, a violent noise like

the blowing off of steam was heard, and a heavy discharge of gas filled

the air courses for a distance of 641 yards and over an area of 86,306

cubic feet. At 400 yards from the point of efflux a mining officer met

the foul air, felt it blowing against him, saw the safety-lamp in his

hand enlarge its flame, and drew down the wick. Still the gas continued

to burn in his lamp for ten minutes, making the wires red hot, and then

the light went out—a hint not lost on the owner, who quickly followed

its example. At a distance of 641 yards from the efflux of the gas he

met four men and boys whose lamps were rapidly reddening. At once they

had the self-possession to immerse them in water, and thus escaped all

danger of explosion.