how would you like to spend
your entire life, day after day, week after week, month after month,
year after year, in the monotonous employment of opening and closing a
large gate? When my escort and myself reached the mines, I was placed
in charge of Mr. Dodds, the official in control of the mines at the
surface. Mr. Dodds is a very competent officer, and has been on duty at
that place more than twenty years. From this officer I received a mining
cap. This piece of head-wear was turban-shaped, striped, of course, with
a leather frontlet, on which was fastened the mining lamp. This lamp, in
shape, resembled an ordinary tea-pot, only it was much smaller. In place
of the handle was a hook, which fastened to the leather frontlet. The
bowl of the lamp contained the oil; a wick passes up through the spout,
at the end of which is the light. The miner carrying his lamp in
this position has it out of his way. With the cap on my head and lamp
lighted, I stood on the verge of a ten by twelve hole in the earth, that
was almost eight hundred feet deep. We think that a well one hundred
feet deep is quite a distance down into the ground, but here was a
hole eight times deeper. In the mining vernacular this hole is termed a
shaft--the term that will be employed in speaking of it hereafter. There
are two of these shafts, about one hundred yards apart. Each shaft is
divided by a wooden partition which descends from the top to the bottom.
Two elevators, or cages, as they are called, ascend and descend along
the shaft. While one cage is coming up the other is going down. They
derive their motor power from two large engines, one for each shaft. The
officer in charge inquired, before making my descent into the mines, if
I ever fainted. "Never," was my reply. Persons sometimes faint in going
down this shaft. "Step into the cage," was the order given. I obeyed,
and, reaching up, took hold of some iron bars that went across the top.
The signal was given, down I started. After I had descended a few feet
a current of air coming up from below put out my light, which left me in
the darkness of an Egyptian night. Down, down, down I went. There are a
great many things in life that I have forgotten. There are a great many
more that I expect to forget, but that first ride down the coal shaft
I never can forget. Thug! I had struck bottom. It is said that when
one starts down hill in this world he keeps on going until he strikes
bottom. My readers will cer