vast region of shafts and levels, or
tunnels--mostly low, narrow, and crooked places--in which men have to
stoop and walk with caution, and where they work by candlelight--a
region which is measured to the inch, and has all its parts mapped out
and named as carefully as are the fields above. Some idea of the extent
of this mine may be gathered from the fact that it is 245 fathoms, (1470
feet), deep, and that all the levels put together form an amount of
cutting through almost solid granite equal to nearly 40 miles in extent.
The deepest part of the mine is that which lies under the bottom of the
sea, three-quarters of a mile from the shore; and, strange to say, that
is also the _driest_ part of the mine. The Great Eastern would find
depth of water sufficient to permit of her anchoring and floating
securely in places where miners are at work, blowing up the solid rock,
1470 feet below her keel--a depth so profound that the wildest waves
that ever burst upon the shore, or the loudest thunder that ever
reverberated among the cliffs, could not send down the faintest echo of
a sound.

The ladder-way by which the men descend to their work is 1230 feet deep.
It takes half an hour to descend and an hour to climb to the surface.

It was a bright morning in May when I walked over from Saint Just with
Captain Jan to pay my first underground visit to Botallack.

Arrayed in the red-stained canvas coat and trousers of the mine, with a
candle stuck in the front of our very strong hats and three spare ones
each hung at our breasts, we proceeded to the ladder-way. This was a
small platform with a hole in it just big enough to admit a man, out of
which projected the head of a strong ladder. Before descending Captain
Jan glanced down the hole and listened to a distant, regular, clicking
sound--like the ticking of a clock. "A man coming up," said he, "we'll
wait a minute."

I looked down, and, in the profound abyss, saw the twinkling of,
apparently, a little star. The steady click of the miner's nailed shoes
on the iron rounds of the ladder continued, and the star advanced,
until, by its feeble light I saw the hat to which it was attached.
Presently a man emerged from the hole, and raising himself erect, gave
vent to a long, deep-drawn sigh. It was, I may say, a suggestive sigh,
for there was a sense of intense relief conveyed by it. The man had
just completed an hour of steady, continuous climbing up the ladders,
after eight h