Trans. N. Y. Ac. Set. 44 Dec. 4, 



small scale, when compared with like enterprises in this country, the 

 leases were on tracts thirty-two feet square. These were so small that 

 the surface was not large enough to contain the earth that had to be 

 raised to sink the shaft ; consequently the earth had to be transported 

 to a distance, and, when I saw it, there was a mound sixty or seventy 

 feet high. Its weight had become so great that it caused a sinking 

 of the earth, and endangered the shafts to such an extent that the Gov- 

 ernment ordered its removal to a distance and its deposit on ground 

 that was not undermmed. The shafts are four feet square, and the 

 sides are supported by timbers six inches through, which leaves a shaft 

 three feet square. The miner digs ihe well or shaft just as we dig our 

 ■water wells, and the dirt and rock is hoisted up in a bucket by a rope 

 and windlass. But one man can work in the shaft at a time. For 

 many years no water was found ; but, as there is a deposit of petro- 

 leum under the ozokerite, at a depth of six hundred feet from the sur- 

 face, the miners were troubled with gas. This is got rid of by blowing 

 a current of fresh air from a rotary fan, through a pipe extending down 

 the shaft as fast as the curbing of timber is put in place. The ozokerite 

 is imbedded in a very stifif blue clay for a depth of several hundred 

 feet ; bolow, it is interlaid with rock. [Specimens of crude and manu- 

 factured ozokerite W2re on exhibition, through the kindness of Dr. J. S. 

 Newberry]. 



That part of the earth's surface has more miners' shafts to 

 the acre than any other part of the globe. As wages are very low in 

 Poland, averaging not more than forty cents a day for men and ten 

 cents for children, a very small quantity of ozokerite pays for the 

 working. If thirty or forty pounds a day is obtained, it remunerates 

 the two men and one or two children required to work each lease. 

 When the bucket, containing the earth, rock and wax, is dumped in 

 the little shed covering the shaft, it is picked over by the children, 

 who detach the wax from the clay or rock with knives. The miners 

 use galvanized wire ropes and wooden buckets. When preparing to 

 ■descend, they invariably cross themselves and utter a short prayer. 

 The business is not free from danger, carelessness on the part of 

 the boy supplying the fresh air, or the caving in of the unsupported 

 roof, causing a large number of deaths. One of the Government in- 

 spectors of the mines informed me that in one week there had been 

 eight deaths from accidencs. 



The ozokerite is taken to a crude furnace, and put into a common 

 cast-iron kettle, and melted. This allows the dirt 10 sink to the 

 bottom, and the ozokerite, freed from all other solids, is skimmed 

 off with a ladle, poured into conical moulds, and allowed to cool, 

 in which form it is sold to the refiners, for about six cents per 



