solid food, especially if there be a
plentiful supply of fresh water at hand.

CHAPTER FOUR.

THE MINES OF EUROPE.

Mark Gilbart had never thrown a moment away. By study, perseverance,
and strict integrity, and the exercise of the intelligence with which he
was endowed, he had risen step by step to a far higher social position
than he had before enjoyed. Though still young, he had become a mining
engineer, and was greatly respected by all who knew him. He had the
happiness of placing his mother and sister in a house of their own,
without the necessity of labouring for their support.

He was one day drawing plans in his study, when he received a note from
a Mr Harvey, a gentleman of property, the owner of several mines,
requesting him to call.

Mr Harvey received him cordially. "I am about to ask you, Mr Gilbart,
to accompany my son Frank on a tour of considerable extent, to visit
some of the more important mines in Europe, and, if there is time, in
other parts of the world, and he is anxious to have a practical man who
will enable him to comprehend the different matters connected with them
more clearly than he would be able to do by himself. I need not say
that I am fully aware of the value of your time, and I therefore offer
you such compensation as I hope you will consider sufficient."

Mark gladly agreed to the proposal. Such a tour was above all things
such as he desired, and which, indeed, he had himself contemplated
taking at his own cost. Frank Harvey was an active, intelligent, young
man, exactly the sort of companion Mark would have chosen. Having
concluded all their arrangements, they lost no time in setting out.

Having visited the English, Scotch, and Welsh coal districts, numbering
in all about fifteen, they bent their steps--after seeing the iron and
lead mines in the south of Scotland, and the north and centre of
England--towards Cornwall, to explore its tin and copper mines; after
which they intended to cross the Channel to visit the more remarkable
ones of Europe.

Their first halting-place was at Redruth, near which is the lofty hill
called Cairn Brea, whence they obtained a view over an extensive mining
district. The country around, covered in many places with enormous
blocks of granite, looked barren and uninviting in the extreme, and no
one would have supposed that any portion of the soil in sight was the
richest in the whole of our island. Within a few miles of the spot
wher