discovered by chance some old
Patent Office reports, and among them all the statistics describing the
coal mines in England. When we returned to the boat I told my informant
that the largest deposit in England was just half that of Cannelton, and
added many details. Mr. Lea was amazed at my knowledge. I told him that
I deserved no credit, for I had picked it up by chance. "Yes," he
replied, "and how was it that you _chanced_ to read that book? None of
us did. Such chances come to inquiring minds."

It also chanced that this whole country abounded in signs of petroleum.
It was found floating on springs. The company possessed rights of
royalty on thousands of acres on Elk River, which was as yet in the
debatable land, harassed by rebels. These claims, however, were "run
out," and needed to be renewed by signatures from the residents. They
were in the hands of David Goshorn, who kept the only "tavern" or hotel
in Charleston, and he asked $5,000 for his rights. There was another
party in the field after them.

I verily believe that David Goshorn sold the right to me because he
played the fiddle and I the guitar, and because he did not like the
rival, who was a Yankee, while I was a congenial companion. Many a
journey had we together, and as I appreciated him as a marked character
of odd oppositions, we got on admirably.

In Cannelton I went down into a coal mine and risked my life strangely in
ascending a railway. The hill is 1,500 feet in height, and on its face
is a railway which ascends at an angle of 15 degrees, perhaps the
steepest in America. I ascended in it, and soon observed that of the two
strands of the iron cable which drew it one was broken. The very next
week the other broke, and two men were killed by an awful death, they and
the car falling a thousand feet to the rocks below.

The next week we returned to Cincinnati, and thence to Philadelphia. On
my way from New York to Providence I became acquainted in the train with
a modest, gentlemanly man, who told me he was a great-grandson or
descendant of Thomson who wrote the "Seasons." I thought him both great
and grand in an incident which soon occurred. A burly, bull-necked
fellow in the car was attacked with an epileptic fit. He roared, kicked,
screamed like a wildcat; and among fifty men in the vehicle, I venture to
say that only Thomson and I, in a lesser degree, showed any plain common
sense. I darted at the epileptic, grappled with hi