Gold and silver form the circulating medium of all civilized and many
savage people. Their possession is wealth, as the lack of them is
poverty; their coming brings happiness, and their departure leaves
misery. From the earth they are taken, and in their pursuit men
undergo many privations and suffer many hardships. The diamond that
sparkles on delicate fingers has been washed from the accumulations
which many centuries had piled above it. Iron, copper, tin, and other
metals are sought by the light of the miner’s lamp, far away from the
rays of the sun, and sometimes in long tunnels pushed beneath the
ever-restless ocean. Ages and ages ago the hand of Nature deposited
beds of coal in every quarter of the globe, and to-day they afford
light and heat to millions of the human race. Down, down, hundreds
and thousands of feet below the surface of the earth these coal-beds
are spread, sometimes over areas many miles in extent, and promising
a supply of fuel for many centuries to come. Thousands of men find
profitable employment in these mines; and but for their labors, those
of us who live above the surface would often suffer the pangs of cold.
[Sidenote: VALUE OF COAL AND IRON.]
As the coal burns brightly in our grates and fills our rooms with
heat, do we think of the many centuries it has been awaiting our use,
and of the toil that has placed it in our control? As we look at the
great network of railways, spreading over our continent, bringing
north and south, east and west, nearer together, annihilating time
and space (and sometimes annihilating people), do we think that but
for the mines of coal and iron our country to-day would be little
better than it was half a century ago, and much of its area, now rich
in commercial and agricultural prosperity, would be little else than
a wilderness? To coal and iron the world owes much of its present
advancement, and both these substances come from beneath the surface
of the earth.
The most valuable minerals, and those which employ the greatest amount
of capital, are of comparatively recent exploitation. Iron has done
more good to the world than gold, and is many times more valuable;
but gold was known and used long before iron was discovered. Coal is
more valuable than copper, and gold, and diamonds; the world could go
on without these last, as other minerals could take their places, but
nothing now known could take the place of coal. From many parts of
the globe the forest primeval has been removed, and countries that a
few hundred years ago were thickly wooded are now almost denuded of
timber. Should the working of coal mines cease to-day, there would
speedily ensue a scarcity of fuel, and, if prolonged, this scarcity
would result in much suffering and death. The exploitation of coal
is one of the great interests of the British Isles, and is of no
inconsiderable importance in the United States. More than two thirds
of the mining enterprise of the world is devoted to it; yet this
substance, possessing no beauty, and to a casual observer devoid of
all merit, is included among the most recently discovered minerals.
“Time’s noblest offspring is its last.”
[Sidenote: FUNNY EXPERIENCE OF A NOVICE.]
To most people the underground life of the miner is a mystery.
Comparatively few of those who walk the earth to-day have ever
been farther within it than to the bottom of a cellar; and in many
localities even this experience has been denied to the inhabitants,
for the reason that no cellars are found there. If an enumeration
were made to-day of all persons in the United States who have ever
been underground more than fifty feet from the surface, and more than
one hour at a time, the number would be found surprisingly small. I
once accompanied a gentleman from Boston in a descent into a mine a
hundred feet in depth, and having a single gallery about eighty feet
long, leading from the foot of the shaft. It was an old story to me,
but a new one to my Boston friend, who clung to the rope of our bucket
as convulsively as a drowning man would clutch a life buoy. When we
reached the bottom, and crept along the low gallery, his heart beat
violently, and he several times wished himself safe above ground. When
we finished our exploration, and returned to the upper air, I asked
him what he thought of the mine.
“Most wonderful thing I ever saw,” he replied. “I never knew much
about mines, and didn’t suppose they were so deep. Wonderful,
certainly.”
“What would you think,” I asked, “if I should take you into a
mine twenty times as deep as this, and having miles of galleries
underground, where you could walk a whole day without going through
all of them?”
His face assumed the most puzzled expression I ever saw on a human
being, and he was speechless for a full minute. When he regained his
voice, he said,—
“You might tell me of such a mine, and I should be obliged to believe
you, though I can hardly conceive one could be made so large. But as
for taking me into such a place, you could never do it without tying
me and carrying me there. Catch me in such a place as that, never.”
I told him the story of the boy who went from home for the first time
in his life to accompany his father to a grist-mill, about three miles
away. When the boy returned, he was thoughtful for a long time, and
finally remarked that he never supposed the world was so large.
The miner’s life is one of vicissitudes and dangers. He is shut out
from the light of day, and depends upon his lamp or candle, instead
of the sun and moon. Shut up in the earth, all is night to him; and
whether the sun shines or is obscured by clouds, whether the moon
is in the heavens, surrounded by twinkling stars, or the whole dome
above is wrapped in darkness, makes little difference to him. All is
night, and without his artificial light, all is blackest darkness. The
changes that follow the earth’s daily revolutions are unknown to the
miner as he performs his work, and if he remained continually below,
the seasons might come and go without his knowledge. Summer’s heat and
winter’s frost do not reach him; there is for him but one season—the
season that has endured for millions of years, and may endure for
millions of years to come. The temperature of the surrounding earth,
unless varied by that of the air driven to him by the machinery of
his mine, or by the heat of his lamp, is the temperature in which he
performs his labors. Day and night, spring and autumn, new moon and
full moon, may come and go, but they extend not their influence to the
depths of the mine.
[Sidenote: DANGERS UNDERGROUND.]
There are dangers from falls of rock and earth, which may cause
immediate death, or enclose their victims in a living tomb. There
are dangers from water, which may enter suddenly, flood the mine,
and drown all who cannot reach the opening in time to escape. There
are dangers from the atmosphere, which may become foul, and leave
him who breathes it lying dead, far away from those who would gladly
assist him, but would lose their lives should they go to his rescue.
His light grows dim, and warns him of his peril; as he starts for a
place of safety the light goes out, and in blackest darkness he falls
and dies, unless speedily rescued. There are dangers from fire, where
the atmosphere becomes charged with inflammable gas; it is lighted by
an accident, and an explosion follows, in which dozens and sometimes
hundreds of men are killed. There are dangers from fire outside the
mine, as in the horrible affair of Avondale. There are dangers from
the breaking of ropes, and the derangement of machinery, from the
carelessness of those whose duty it is to exercise the utmost caution,
and from other causes to be hereafter enumerated. And yet with all
these perils there is no lack of men ready to meet them, as there is
no lack of men ready to meet the perils and dangers of all branches of
industry. Laborers can always be found for any honest employment, and
too often for employment quite outside the bounds of honesty.
[Sidenote: EARLY LIFE UNDERGROUND.]
The earliest life underground was in caves of natural formation. All
over the globe there are caverns where men have lived, sometimes under
concealment, sometimes for sanitary reasons, and sometimes because
they saved the labor of constructing houses. Some of these caverns
are of great dimensions, and could furnish shelter for thousands of
men, while others are adapted to the wants of only a few persons.
Many caverns and caves are not available as dwelling-places, but are
visited only from motives of curiosity on the part of travellers, or
from a desire for gain on the part of those who seek whatever may be
valuable. Many caves have histories romantic or tragic, and some of
them combine romance and tragedy in about equal proportions. Tales of
love and war, of fidelity and treachery, and of all the contending
passions and experiences of human nature, can be found in the
histories of these excavations which have been made by no mortal hands.
[Sidenote: MINING IN METAPHOR.]
Metaphorically, there is a great deal of underground life above the
surface of the earth. Men devote time, and patience, and study to the
acquisition of wealth by measures that are as far removed from the
light of honesty as the tunnel the miner drives beneath the mountain
is removed from the light of the sun. One builds a reputation which
another burrows beneath and destroys, as the engineers at Hell Gate
undertook to destroy the rocky reef which sunk the ships of many a
navigator, from the days of Hendrick Hudson to Gen. Newton. Hope
springs eternal in the human breast, but it is not always hope for
better things.
Dishonest men hope for wealth, they care not how obtained, and in its
pursuit they frequently imitate the labors of the miner. Shafts are
sunk and tunnels are driven; the pick, the drill, and the powder-blast
perform their work; operations are silently and secretly conducted,
and all unknown to the outer world; dangers of falls of earth, of
floods of water, of choke-damp, and fire-damp, are unheeded, and
by and by the prize may be obtained. A great city, in its moral or
immoral life, is cut and seamed with subterranean excavations more
extensive than those of the richest coal-fields of England or Belgium.
Wall Street is a mining centre greater than the whole of Pennsylvania,
and to one who knows it intimately it reveals daily more shafts and
tunnels than can be found in Nevada or Colorado. The career of a
politician is not unlike that of the miner, though it is frequently
much more difficult to follow. The miner may be tracked and found, but
there is many a politician whose devious windings would baffle the
keenest detective that ever lived.
* * * * *
To describe underground life in its many phases is the object of
this volume. The experience of the miner is full of adventures of an
exciting character; so exciting, indeed, that there is no occasion to
use fiction in place of fact. The hardships, the difficulties, and the
dangers that surround him who labors beneath the earth’s surface might
form the basis of a story more interesting than the most skilfully
constructed romance ever printed. It is an old adage, that Truth is
stranger than Fiction: the experience of the miner affords better
illustrations of the correctness of this adage than does that of any
other laborer. Especially is this the case if we consider Underground
Life in its metaphoric as well as in its literal sense, and note the
devious and hidden ways in which many of our fellow-men pass the
greater part of their existence.
[Illustration: AUSTIN, NEVADA, SIX THOUSAND FEET ABOVE THE SEA. THE
METROPOLIS OF THE REESE RIVER DISTRICT. SILVER FIRST DISCOVERED AT
THIS POINT IN JULY, 1862.]
II.
DISCOVERY OF COAL.
SAVAGE THEORIES ABOUT COAL.—EXPERIENCE OF A SIBERIAN
EXPLORING PARTY.—BURNING BLACK STONES.—MINERAL FUEL AMONG THE
ANCIENTS.—THEIR MOTIVE POWER.—CHINESE TRADITIONS.—CHINESE GAS
WELLS.—HISTORY OF COAL IN ENGLAND.—A ROYAL EDICT.—CURIOUS STORY
OF THE MINER OF PLENEVAUX.—EXTENT OF COAL FIELDS THROUGHOUT
THE GLOBE.—THE QUAKER AND THE YANKEE PEDLER.—THE FIRST
ANTHRACITE.—BELLINGHAM BAY AND THE CHINOOKS.—HOW COAL WAS
FORMED.—INTERVIEWING A REPTILE.—THEORIES OF THE ANCIENTS.—RIVERS
OF OIL OF VITRIOL.—ANCIENT AND MODERN FIRE WORSHIPPERS.
In the autumn of 1865, a small party connected with the survey of a
telegraph route through North-eastern Asia, was landed at the mouth
of the Anadyr River, near Behring’s Straits. Another party was landed
in Kamchatka, and proceeded over land towards the north. They made
constant inquiries about the Anadyr party, and at last learned from a
band of wandering aboriginals that some white men had been left by a
fire ship (steamer) near the mouth of the river, and were living in
a small house which they had constructed partly of boards, partly of
bushes, and partly of earth. The savages described them as the most
wonderful white men they had ever seen. “They have,” said one of the
savages, “an iron box, and they burn black stones in it to make a
fire.” These savages had never seen a stove, and they had never seen
coal. To their untutored minds the work of the white men was something
wonderful.
It is probable that the comparatively recent discovery of mineral
coal is due in a great measure to its close resemblance to stone. A
savage or civilized man knows that an ordinary stone, whether white,
red, blue, green, or gray, will not burn; then why should he suppose
that a black stone will burn? Until a comparatively recent date there
has been no great demand for coal as fuel. Many parts of the world at
the present day are covered with immense forests, and for a hundred
and perhaps thousands of years there will be no occasion in these
localities to make use of the mineral fuel.
[Sidenote: COAL AMONG THE ANCIENTS.]
It is supposed that the Greeks and Romans had some knowledge of fossil
fuel, but they made very little use of it, partly for the reason that
they did not know the proper way to burn it, and partly because the
forests in those days furnished all the fuel needed for industrial
purposes. There were no manufactories and smelting establishments, and
the working of metals was carried on in a very primitive way. Wood
and charcoal were the only fuel, and most of the countries inhabited
at that early day were favored with a warm climate, that for the most
part of the year was comfortable enough by day, while blankets and
other bed-clothing gave sufficient warmth by night. The laws of heat
were not known; the pressure of vapor was not even thought of, or
suspected; and mechanical force was derived from wind, from water, and
from animated beings.
When the winds did not blow the galleys were rowed by convicts, and in
the absence of a stream of water, animals, and sometimes men, turned
the mill.
Occasionally in building aqueducts, large beds of coal were laid bare,
but no attention was paid to them. In making one aqueduct, a branch
of a canal was cut through a bed of rock, and at the bottom of that
bed a valuable seam of coal was found, but nobody appears to have
troubled his head about it. It is supposed by most writers that the
discovery of coal occurred in the East. The Chinese have been credited
with the discovery and invention of nearly everything in the world
except the discovery of America and the invention of the electric
telegraph. It is pretty certain that they were acquainted with mineral
fuel from a very remote antiquity. They knew how to work it, and apply
it to industrial uses, such as baking porcelain, drying tea, and the
like. The Chinese, for hundreds of years, used to bake porcelain
with mineral coal. It is only recently that mineral coal has been
substituted for charcoal for this very same purpose in France, and it
has been found to be quite economical.
[Sidenote: CHINESE FIRE WELLS.]
The Chinese knew how to collect the gases which came from coal,
and they used them for illuminating. The accounts of the early
missionaries state that from time immemorial the Chinese used to bore
into the earth in search of gas, and when they found it they conveyed
it in pipes to the places where it was wanted. Gas was not used for
illuminating in Europe until quite recently.
Historians also say that for many centuries mines of coal have been
worked in the Celestial Empire, but that the working was in a very
barbarous fashion. Many of their coal mines consist of open cuttings;
when they went underground they took but little care to construct
drains or support the subterranean ways, and they took no precaution
whatever against explosions of fire-damp, which often proved fatal.
Their working of mines to-day is in the same barbarous fashion of
centuries ago, and one might be pardoned for thinking, like the boy
who was trying to learn the alphabet, that it was hardly worth while
to go through so much to accomplish so little.
In England there are evidences to show that coal was known to the
Romans, and possibly to the Britons before the Roman invasion; but it
was only worked at the outcrops of the coal seams. No mention is made
of coal until the time of Henry II. In 1259 a charter was granted to
the Freemen of Newcastle, giving them the liberty “to dig for cole,”
and a few years later coal was carried to London.
In 1306 Parliament petitioned the king to prevent the importation
of coal, and Edward I. issued a proclamation forbidding the use of
mineral fuel. Coal was worked to some extent in the thirteenth,
fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, and by the beginning
of the seventeenth century the English coal mines were in full
operation. In 1615 four thousand English ships were employed in the
coal trade. The coal mines of Belgium were opened about the same time
as those of England. The Belgian coal miners tell a curious story
of the discovery of coal, in the twelfth century, at the village of
Plenevaux, near Liège. One of the old chroniclers gives the account as
follows:—
[Sidenote: THE MINER OF PLENEVAUX.]
“Houillos, a farrier, at Plenevaux, was so poor as not to be able to
earn enough for his wants, not having sometimes bread enough to give
to his wife and children. One day, being without work, he almost made
up his mind to put an end to his life, when an old man, with a white
beard, entered his shop. They entered into conversation. Houillos told
him his troubles; that, being a disciple of St. Eloi, he worked in
iron, blowing the bellows himself to save the expense of an assistant.
He could easily realize some advantages if charcoal was not so dear,
as it was that which ruined him.
“The good old man was moved even to tears. ‘My friend,’ said he to the
farrier, ‘go to the neighboring mountain, dig up the ground, and you
will find a black earth suitable for the forge.’
“No sooner said than done. Houillos went to the spot pointed out,
found the earth as predicted, and having thrown it into the fire,
proceeded to forge a horseshoe at one heating. Transported with joy,
he would not keep the precious discovery to himself, but communicated
it to his neighbors, and even to his brother farriers. A grateful
posterity has bestowed his name to coal, which is called, in French,
_Houille_.
“His memory is still cherished by all the miners of Liège, who
frequently tell the story of the honest collier, or of the old coal
miner, as they delight in calling him. The miners say it was an angel
who showed him the spot where the coal was.”
It is not positively known when the first discovery of coal was made
in the United States. Some historians say that it was before the
Revolutionary war, while others say it was since that time. It is
certain that coal mining has not been extensively prosecuted on the
American continent until within the past fifty years.
[Illustration: IMPRESSIONS OF PLANTS FOUND IN COAL.]
[Illustration: DISCOVERY OF ANTHRACITE COAL IN PENNSYLVANIA, IN
1768.—INTRODUCED AS FUEL FOR RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVES IN 1836.]
There is an old story told somewhere of a discovery of coal in
Pennsylvania by one of the Quaker settlers in the mountains, not far
from where Scranton now stands. According to the story-teller,—but I
cannot vouch for his correctness,—the Quaker settler, who was familiar
with coal in England, discovered a peculiar stone, which seemed to him
almost identical with the substance which he had used in England for
fuel. He carried some of it home, and threw it in the fire. He found
that it became red, and was consumed, but that it would only ignite
when there was a very hot fire of wood around it. The coal with which
he had been familiar would burn quite readily, and gave off a thick
black smoke; but the substance which he had discovered gave neither
smoke nor flame. He wondered at this, and concluded that the substance
which he found was worthless.
[Sidenote: THE QUAKER AND THE YANKEE.]
One day a traveller, whom the story-teller converts into a Yankee
pedler, came along. As they sat by the evening fire, the Quaker told
him of the peculiar region they were in, and of the remarkable stones
which he had discovered. He threw a few fragments upon the fire, and
in a little while they became red and were consumed.
The traveller insisted that the substance was valuable; that it was
probably good coal, but the great difficulty was to make it burn.
After gossiping a while about the matter, the traveller went to bed.
During the night he pondered over the matter, and in the morning
asked his Quaker friend to take him to the spot where he had found
the black stone. The spot was shown him; he examined the substance
carefully. The Quaker carried to the house a considerable quantity of
the substance, and then the Yankee said,—
“I think we can make this stuff burn if we can only draw a fire
through it. Now, what we want to do is to fix up something so as to
make the fire go where we want it to.”
The Quaker assented to the proposition, and asked if it were possible.
The Yankee said, “Yes. I know how it can be done; but before I tell
you I want to buy half of the land where you found that stone.”
A bargain was struck very speedily, and the Yankee hunted around the
establishment, and found a piece of sheet iron, which he fashioned
into a blower. He then built up a small, narrow fire-place, and fitted
his blower to the front. “The next thing,” said he, “is to make
something like a grate;” and they took some rods of iron and fashioned
them into a rude grate.
“Now,” said the Yankee to the Quaker, “build a good fire of wood, so
that it will fill the bottom of that grate.”
The Quaker followed the directions, and when the fire was well
started, the Yankee threw a peck or so of the coal on the top and put
up the blower. The fire was drawn directly among the fragments of
coal; in a little while the blower was removed, and the coal was found
to be a red, burning mass, which threw off an intense heat.
Both were delighted with the discovery; and thus was opened the first
anthracite coal mine in America.
[Sidenote: DISCOVERY AT BELLINGHAM BAY.]
A story was once told to me, on the Pacific coast, concerning the
discovery of coal at Bellingham Bay, in British Columbia. The narrator
said that a party of men connected with the Hudson Bay Company’s
service, was at one time in the camp of a family of Chinook Indians.
The Indians told them that a few days before, in a locality which
they had visited, they had attempted to build a fire. The wind was
blowing, and in order to shield their fire they piled some stones
around it. Among these were two or three large black stones, which
they had picked up on the surface. Great was their astonishment, when
the fire was under way, to see these black stones ignite and burn.
They thought it something mysterious, and immediately ascribed it
to the work of the devil, just as a great many savage and civilized
people are inclined to attribute anything they do not understand to
His Satanic Majesty. Next day they guided the white men to the spot.
It was found that a vein of coal outcropped upon the surface, and gave
sure indications of a rich deposit below.
[Sidenote: ANNUAL COAL PRODUCT.]
The annual production of coal throughout the entire world is roughly
estimated at about two hundred millions of tons. More than half of
this coal is produced in Great Britain. About twenty millions of tons
are mined in North America, and the rest mainly in Belgium, France,
and Prussia. The production of other countries is comparatively
insignificant. Coal is the most valuable mineral substance known. The
amount of coal taken from the earth every year is double the value of
all the gold, silver, and diamonds annually produced. In the great
World’s Fair of London in 1851, when the famous Kohinoor diamond
attracted thousands of curious spectators, there was one day a lump of
coal placed near the case containing the Kohinoor. The lump bore this
brief label: “This is the _real_ Kohinoor diamond.”