AHERICA'S UNDERGROUND WORKERS. 



BY CHARLES HIGQINS. 



[Charles Higgins, publisher; liorn Brooklyn, iN. Y., ISGO; educated in public schools 

 of Brooklyn and Toronto, Canada; began business career as publisher in the latter 

 city and removed to Chicago in 187S; has had editorial supervision of a number tA 

 important works among which may be mentioned The Americaniz(;d EncyclojM-dia 

 Britannica, The World's History and Its Makers, and has written several articles for 

 magazines and reviews.] 



Blasting and tunnelling a way through the ground, far 

 beneath the upper crust of the earth, sometimes fighting 

 floods and again working in a heat that almost boils water, 

 facing perils amid darkness, yet never halting winter nor 

 summer nor admitting defeat, a great army of more than 

 600,000 men and boys is toiling in the mines of America, 

 adding to the world's wealth daily by enormous contributions. 



It is an army composed of representatives of every nation 

 almost in the world, but a thoroughly Americanized army of 

 men whose slogan is the same now as when it w^as first uttered 

 by John Mackay, one of the promoters and owners of the Com- 

 stock mine in the Virginia range, Nevada, in 1859, when he 

 said: 



''Everything is possible in mining; the only question is, 

 will it pay?" 



With this spirit animating the men at the heads of the 

 mines and extending down to and through the ranks to the 

 boys in the breakers, America is foremost in the ranks of the 

 mining countries of the world. Of its miners probably not 

 more than half are Americans by birth ; the rest are gathered 

 from every nation of Europe and parts of Asia and Africa. 

 There is not a state in the union, with a few^ exceptions, that 

 is without mines and miners, and a great army could be mus- 

 tered from the coal mines alone of the country, which cover 

 more than three hundred thousand square miles of territory. 



The extent of the mining industry of this country may 

 be understood in a slight degree when it is said that the prod- 

 uct of all the mines in gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc and other 



IS 



