1"]0 THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 



Being myfelf unable to add any comment, I fhall 

 tranfcribe them verbatim *. 



" People who know very little of arts or fciences,; 

 or the powers of nature, (which, in other words, are! 

 the powers of the author of nature,) will laugh at 

 us Cardigan iliire miners, who maintain the exigence 

 of knockers in mines, a kind of good-natured impal- 

 pable people, not to be feen, but heard, and who, 

 feem to us to work in the mines 5 that is to fay, 

 they are the types, or forerunners of working in 

 mineSj as dreams are of feme accidents which happen 

 to lis. The barometer falls before rain or florms. 

 If we did not know the conflruclion of it, we fhould 

 call it a kind of dream, that foretells rain ; but we 

 know it is natural, and produced by natural means, 

 comprehended by us. Now how are we fure, or 

 any body fure, but that our dreams are produced by 

 the fame natural means ? There is fome faint refem- 

 blance of this in the fenfe of hearing ; the bird is 

 killed before we hear the report of the gun. How- 

 ever this is, / mud fpeak well of the knockers, for 

 they have aftually flood my very good friends, 

 whether they are aerial beings called fpirits, or 

 whether they are a people made of matter, not to 

 be felt by our grofs bodies, as air and fire, and the 

 like. 



* They were written to his hrotlier, Mr. William Morris, 

 cotnptrolkr to the Ciilloms at Holyhead. The firft is dated 

 the I4tli of October, and the other the 4th of December, 1754. 



•« B^^fore 



