Part 3

1. Phases of Underground Life, FRONTISPIECE. 2. Austin, Nevada; A Western Mining Town, 34 3. Impressions of Plants found in Coal, 40 4. Discovery of Anthracite Coal in Pennsylvania, 40 5. Wire Railway at the Harewood Coal Mine, British Columbia, 51 6. Entrance to a Coal Mine, 54 7. Interior of a Coal Mine, 54 8. Descending a Shaft, 68 9. Sections of an English Coal Mine, 74 10. Discovery of Silver in Peru, 82 11. Interior of a Silver Mine, 82 12. Entrance to a Silver Mine of Central America, 88 13. Indian Silver Miners at Work, 88 14. One Method of Washing for Silver, 95 15. Another Method of Washing for Silver, 95 16. New York Speculators at the Mines, 108 17. Demonstrating the Value of a Silver Mine, 108 18. Pearl Diving in the East Indies, 130 19. Discovery of Loaves of Bread Baked 1800 Years Ago, 167 20. Bodies of Pompeians Cast in the Ashes, 173 21. Railroad from Naples to the Summit of Mt. Vesuvius, 187 22. Descent of Vesuvius, 188 23. Searching for Relics, 193 24. The Gate of Herculaneum and Street of Tombs, 197 25. The Crater of Vesuvius, 198 26. Bay of Naples, 206 27. Naples Wagon, 206 28. Nero’s Gymnasium, 214 29. Dr. and Mrs. Schliemann the Excavators at Mycenæ (Greece), 221 30. The Explorations at Mycenæ—the Treasury of Atreus (entrance),224 31. Battle of the Warriors, 263 32. The Philadelphia Bank Robbery, 268 33. Australian Natives Burning their Dead, 278 34. An Indian Burial Place, 278 35. The Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, 289 36. Hall in the Tombs of Assasseef, 289 37. Pumping Well on Oil Creek, 334 38. The Grand Hotel, 356 39. Place De La Bastille, 362 40. The Bastille, 362 41. Destruction of the Bastille, 371 42. Working a Diamond Claim, 376 43. River Washing—Cradling for Diamonds, 376 44. Celebrated Diamonds of the World, 382 45. The Orloff Diamond, 382 46. Star of the South, 382 47. The Nassac, 382 48. The Cumberland, 382 49. The Sancy, 382 50. Star of the South—rough, 382 51. The Dresden, 382 52. The Regent Diamond, 382 53. The Kohinoor—recut, 382 54. Australian Brilliant, 382 55. The Eugenie, 382 56. Regent—side view, 382 57. The Hope, 382 58. The Florentine, 382 59. The Shah, 382 60. The Diamond Fields of South Africa, 391 61. Grand Avenue of the Champs Elysées, 407 62. Ball at Mabille, 415 63. East River Bridge, 426 64. Inundation of a Mine, 439 65. Falling in of a Mine, 444 66. View of Mammoth Cave, 474 67. Stalagmites in the Cave, 474 68. Execution of a Chinese Criminal, 488 69. Eastern Entrance to Hoosac Tunnel, 500 70. Western Entrance to Hoosac Tunnel, 500 71. Work at the Heading, 506 72. Boring machine used in Mount Cenis Tunnel, 518 73. Side View of Boring Machine, 518 74. Place De La Concorde, 527 75. The Madeleine Church, 530 76. Subterranean Paris, 536 77. The Great Sewer, 536 78. Quicksilver Mines of New Almaden, 554 79. Blasting in the Quicksilver Mines, 554 80. Burning of a Coolie Ship, 568 81. Coolies Planning a Mutiny, 577 82. Mutiny on the Lower Deck, 577 83. The Avondale Disaster—Removing Bodies from the Mine, 586 84. Interior of an Iron Mine, 594 85. Section of the Broadway Underground Railway, 644 86. Tunneling Broadway for the Underground Railway, 652 87. Interior of Pneumatic Passenger Car, 655 88. Portal of the Broadway Tunnel, 655 89. The Bomb Ferry—Travel in the 30th Century, 661 90. The Public Highway—Travel in the 30th Century, 661 91. Underground Rail Road Station, Aldgate London, 671 92. Conversationshaus at Baden, 708 93. Concert in the Gardens at Baden, 708 94. Gambling Saloon at Baden, 722 95. Esquimaux Dwellings, 739 96. Robbery of the Diligence, 750 97. Drinking Pisco in a San Francisco Saloon, 769 98. Jas. W. Marshall, the Discoverer of Gold in California, 790 99. Sutter’s Mills where Gold was Discovered, 790 100. Emigrant Train of Gold Hunters in 1849, 794 101. Chinese Gold Mining in California, 794 102. Gold Washing in the California Mines, 798 103. Miners Prospecting, 804 104. Miners Around their Camp-fire, 810 105. Ground Sluicing, 814 106. Hydraulic Mining, 814 107. A Copper Mine of the Lake Superior Region, 824 108. Interior of a Copper Mine, 821 109. Drilling in a Copper Mine, 824 110. Catacombs of Rome—The Three Brothers, 832 111. Vaulted Chapel in the Catacombs, 840 112. Lost in the Catacombs, 840 113. Pirates of the Mississippi, 862 114. View of Hellgate from Negro Point, 885 115. General View of Works at Hallett’s Point, 885 116. View of Shaft from the Dam, 892 117. The Shaft, Showing Headings, 892 118. Dream of a Diamond Swindler, 911 119. Descending the Shaft—Wieliczka Salt Mines, 932 120. Chapel in the Wieliczka Salt Mines, 932 121. Getting out Salt, 936 122. Illustration of the Infernal Lake, 936 123. Explosion of Fire Damp, 952 124. Our Quarters in Libby Prison, 1008 125. Tail Piece, 1016

UNDERGROUND.

I.

BELOW THE SURFACE.

DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE.—WHAT THE WORLD BELIEVES.—MUNGO PARK IN AFRICA.—WHY THE NATIVES PITIED HIM.—EXTENT OF UNDERGROUND LIFE.—DISTRIBUTION OF THE EARTH’S WEALTH.—VALUE OF MINES.—THEIR EXTENT AND IMPORTANCE.—COAL AND IRON.—MYSTERIES OF MINES.—EXPERIENCE WITH A NOVICE.—CHANGES OF SEASONS TO A MINER.—DANGERS IN MINES.—LIFE IN CAVERNS.—UNDERGROUND IN METAPHOR.—SOCIAL MINING.—OBJECT OF THIS VOLUME.

In these days of fast presses, cheap books and newspapers, lightning telegraphs, and other disseminators of intelligence, there may be those who doubt the correctness of the adage which says, “One half the world does not know how the other half lives.” Human nature is inquisitive. We are constantly seeking information regarding the affairs of others, and we generally manage in some way to obtain what we seek. We store our minds with useful and useless knowledge of the manners and customs of people in other lands, and of the private lives and histories of our near neighbors. Very often the material we thus lay aside in our mental store-houses does not particularly concern us, but, like Mrs. Toodles, in her purchase of a door-plate bearing the name of Thompson with a p, we think it will be handy to have at some future day, and so we keep it. With a fair devotion to inquiries, and a well-cultivated memory, a life of threescore and ten years ought, at this day, to acquaint its possessor with a general knowledge of the how and why of the existence of at least half the inhabitants of the globe.

[Sidenote: VARIED TASTES]

But it may be set down as an axiom, that one half the world does not live as the other half does. People’s tastes differ, and there are very few who would wish to live exactly like others, especially if those to whom the choice is offered are richer than the others. There are many who would not change places with their wealthy neighbors, and it is more than probable that their wealthy neighbors would not change places with them. The majority of sailors are not happy when on shore, but are constantly sighing for a wet sheet and a flowing sea, while the majority of landsmen have no desire for such hydropathic experience. When Mungo Park travelled in Africa, the natives expressed great pity for him because he had lost his color; they constantly mourned over the unhappy lot of the white man, and would have been quite unwilling to change complexions with him. Mungo received their sympathy with a countenance becomingly solemn, but the chances are more than even that what they regarded as a misfortune was by him considered a blessing. “Give me a bed of ice and a pillow of snow,” said a moribund Laplander in Italy, “and I shall die happy.” A refrigerating couch of this kind would be comfortless in the extreme to a countryman of Pauline Borghese.

A comparatively small portion of the human race lives, or would wish to live, beneath the surface of the globe. Most of us rarely go there voluntarily, and our first visits of any important duration are made after we have shuffled off this mortal coil and invoked the aid of the sexton. Then we are carried there without protest, and the earth is filled above us in sufficient depth to guard us against ordinary intrusions. We may be certain that none of our friends will come in living flesh to join us, and when death brings them to our side their slumbers will be as long and peaceful as our own. The earth, beneath its surface, is regarded by many, as the dwelling-place of Death, to be contemplated with a shudder, and to be visited only when life has left us.

But have they ever considered how much of life there is which the light of day does not reveal? The plants in our gardens have their roots in the rich soil prepared for their sustenance; remove those roots, and the plants fall and die. The trees of the forest spread their branches and unfold their leaves to sun and storm, but there are other branches spread below which sometimes extend more widely than those above. Through these lower limbs, hidden from the light of the sun and sheltered from the peltings of the pitiless storm, life comes to the trunk and to the upper branches. Lay bare these lower branches, and tear them from the earth, and the tree soon withers and perishes. The grass carpets the meadow, the flowers adorn the hill-sides, wheat and corn grow in the fields, the trees spread their shading limbs and drop their fruits in their season, and without these the world would be desolate. But all have their existence underground, and they cling as tenaciously to the bosom of Mother Earth as the men who walk among or upon them cling to that mysterious element which we call life.

[Sidenote: WEALTH UNDERGROUND.]

A great portion of the wealth of the globe lies beneath its surface. Gold and silver form the circulating medium of all civilized and many savage people. Their possession is wealth, as the lack of them is poverty; their coming brings happiness, and their departure leaves misery. From the earth they are taken, and in their pursuit men undergo many privations and suffer many hardships. The diamond that sparkles on delicate fingers has been washed from the accumulations which many centuries had piled above it. Iron, copper, tin, and other metals are sought by the light of the miner’s lamp, far away from the rays of the sun, and sometimes in long tunnels pushed beneath the ever-restless ocean. Ages and ages ago the hand of Nature deposited beds of coal in every quarter of the globe, and to-day they afford light and heat to millions of the human race. Down, down, hundreds and thousands of feet below the surface of the earth these coal-beds are spread, sometimes over areas many miles in extent, and promising a supply of fuel for many centuries to come. Thousands of men find profitable employment in these mines; and but for their labors, those of us who live above the surface would often suffer the pangs of cold.

[Sidenote: VALUE OF COAL AND IRON.]

As the coal burns brightly in our grates and fills our rooms with heat, do we think of the many centuries it has been awaiting our use, and of the toil that has placed it in our control? As we look at the great network of railways, spreading over our continent, bringing north and south, east and west, nearer together, annihilating time and space (and sometimes annihilating people), do we think that but for the mines of coal and iron our country to-day would be little better than it was half a century ago, and much of its area, now rich in commercial and agricultural prosperity, would be little else than a wilderness? To coal and iron the world owes much of its present advancement, and both these substances come from beneath the surface of the earth.

The most valuable minerals, and those which employ the greatest amount of capital, are of comparatively recent exploitation. Iron has done more good to the world than gold, and is many times more valuable; but gold was known and used long before iron was discovered. Coal is more valuable than copper, and gold, and diamonds; the world could go on without these last, as other minerals could take their places, but nothing now known could take the place of coal. From many parts of the globe the forest primeval has been removed, and countries that a few hundred years ago were thickly wooded are now almost denuded of timber. Should the working of coal mines cease to-day, there would speedily ensue a scarcity of fuel, and, if prolonged, this scarcity would result in much suffering and death. The exploitation of coal is one of the great interests of the British Isles, and is of no inconsiderable importance in the United States. More than two thirds of the mining enterprise of the world is devoted to it; yet this substance, possessing no beauty, and to a casual observer devoid of all merit, is included among the most recently discovered minerals. “Time’s noblest offspring is its last.”

[Sidenote: FUNNY EXPERIENCE OF A NOVICE.]

To most people the underground life of the miner is a mystery. Comparatively few of those who walk the earth to-day have ever been farther within it than to the bottom of a cellar; and in many localities even this experience has been denied to the inhabitants, for the reason that no cellars are found there. If an enumeration were made to-day of all persons in the United States who have ever been underground more than fifty feet from the surface, and more than one hour at a time, the number would be found surprisingly small. I once accompanied a gentleman from Boston in a descent into a mine a hundred feet in depth, and having a single gallery about eighty feet long, leading from the foot of the shaft. It was an old story to me, but a new one to my Boston friend, who clung to the rope of our bucket as convulsively as a drowning man would clutch a life buoy. When we reached the bottom, and crept along the low gallery, his heart beat violently, and he several times wished himself safe above ground. When we finished our exploration, and returned to the upper air, I asked him what he thought of the mine.

“Most wonderful thing I ever saw,” he replied. “I never knew much about mines, and didn’t suppose they were so deep. Wonderful, certainly.”

“What would you think,” I asked, “if I should take you into a mine twenty times as deep as this, and having miles of galleries underground, where you could walk a whole day without going through all of them?”

His face assumed the most puzzled expression I ever saw on a human being, and he was speechless for a full minute. When he regained his voice, he said,—

“You might tell me of such a mine, and I should be obliged to believe you, though I can hardly conceive one could be made so large. But as for taking me into such a place, you could never do it without tying me and carrying me there. Catch me in such a place as that, never.”

I told him the story of the boy who went from home for the first time in his life to accompany his father to a grist-mill, about three miles away. When the boy returned, he was thoughtful for a long time, and finally remarked that he never supposed the world was so large.

The miner’s life is one of vicissitudes and dangers. He is shut out from the light of day, and depends upon his lamp or candle, instead of the sun and moon. Shut up in the earth, all is night to him; and whether the sun shines or is obscured by clouds, whether the moon is in the heavens, surrounded by twinkling stars, or the whole dome above is wrapped in darkness, makes little difference to him. All is night, and without his artificial light, all is blackest darkness. The changes that follow the earth’s daily revolutions are unknown to the miner as he performs his work, and if he remained continually below, the seasons might come and go without his knowledge. Summer’s heat and winter’s frost do not reach him; there is for him but one season—the season that has endured for millions of years, and may endure for millions of years to come. The temperature of the surrounding earth, unless varied by that of the air driven to him by the machinery of his mine, or by the heat of his lamp, is the temperature in which he performs his labors. Day and night, spring and autumn, new moon and full moon, may come and go, but they extend not their influence to the depths of the mine.

[Sidenote: DANGERS UNDERGROUND.]

There are dangers from falls of rock and earth, which may cause immediate death, or enclose their victims in a living tomb. There are dangers from water, which may enter suddenly, flood the mine, and drown all who cannot reach the opening in time to escape. There are dangers from the atmosphere, which may become foul, and leave him who breathes it lying dead, far away from those who would gladly assist him, but would lose their lives should they go to his rescue. His light grows dim, and warns him of his peril; as he starts for a place of safety the light goes out, and in blackest darkness he falls and dies, unless speedily rescued. There are dangers from fire, where the atmosphere becomes charged with inflammable gas; it is lighted by an accident, and an explosion follows, in which dozens and sometimes hundreds of men are killed. There are dangers from fire outside the mine, as in the horrible affair of Avondale. There are dangers from the breaking of ropes, and the derangement of machinery, from the carelessness of those whose duty it is to exercise the utmost caution, and from other causes to be hereafter enumerated. And yet with all these perils there is no lack of men ready to meet them, as there is no lack of men ready to meet the perils and dangers of all branches of industry. Laborers can always be found for any honest employment, and too often for employment quite outside the bounds of honesty.

[Sidenote: EARLY LIFE UNDERGROUND.]

The earliest life underground was in caves of natural formation. All over the globe there are caverns where men have lived, sometimes under concealment, sometimes for sanitary reasons, and sometimes because they saved the labor of constructing houses. Some of these caverns are of great dimensions, and could furnish shelter for thousands of men, while others are adapted to the wants of only a few persons. Many caverns and caves are not available as dwelling-places, but are visited only from motives of curiosity on the part of travellers, or from a desire for gain on the part of those who seek whatever may be valuable. Many caves have histories romantic or tragic, and some of them combine romance and tragedy in about equal proportions. Tales of love and war, of fidelity and treachery, and of all the contending passions and experiences of human nature, can be found in the histories of these excavations which have been made by no mortal hands.

[Sidenote: MINING IN METAPHOR.]

Metaphorically, there is a great deal of underground life above the surface of the earth. Men devote time, and patience, and study to the acquisition of wealth by measures that are as far removed from the light of honesty as the tunnel the miner drives beneath the mountain is removed from the light of the sun. One builds a reputation which another burrows beneath and destroys, as the engineers at Hell Gate undertook to destroy the rocky reef which sunk the ships of many a navigator, from the days of Hendrick Hudson to Gen. Newton. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, but it is not always hope for better things.