The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mines and its Wonders, by W.H.G. Kingston

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Title: The Mines and its Wonders

Author: W.H.G. Kingston

Release Date: January 28, 2009 [EBook #27918]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The Mines and its Wonders, by W.H.G. Kingston.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE MINER'S DANGERS.

A hum of human voices rose from a village in the centre of England, but
they were those of women, girls, and children, the latter playing in the
street, running, skipping, laughing, singing, and shouting in shrill
tones, the former in their yards or in front of their dwellings,
following such avocations as could be carried on out of doors on that
warm summer evening. Not a man or lad, not even a boy above eight years
old, was to be seen. On one side of the village far away could be
distinguished green fields, picturesque hills, widespreading trees, and
a sparkling stream flowing in their midst; on the other, nearer at hand,
a dreary black region, the ground covered with calcined heaps, the roads
composed of coal dust or ashes, and beyond, tall chimneys sending forth
dense volumes of smoke, which, wreathing upwards, formed a dark canopy
over the scene. Then there were large uncouth buildings, above which
huge beams appeared, lifting alternately their ends with ceaseless
motion, now up, now down, engaged evidently in some Titanic operation,
while all the time proceeding from that direction were heard groans, and
shrieks, and whistlings, and wailings, and the sound of rushing water,
and the rattling and rumbling of tram or railway waggons rushing at
rapid speed across the country, some loaded with huge lumps of
glittering coal, others returning to be refilled at the pit's mouth.
Those high buildings contained the steam-engines which worked the
machinery employed in the coal mine; the tall chimneys carried up the
smoke from the furnaces and produced the current of air which kept them
blazing. The deafening noises came from cranks, pulleys, gins,
whimsays, and other contrivances for lifting the coal from the bottom of