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deeper still, you may find other workings at ninety, one 

 hundred and twenty, and one hundred and fifty fathoms — 

 giving a depth of nine hundred feet from the place where 

 you entered the mine, or something over eleven hundred 

 from the top of the shaft. In most of these levels you may 

 find men at work, generally elevated upon a platform called 

 by the miners a ' bunning,' — probably hound in, — the little 

 stage being supported by strong beams jammed between the 

 walls of rock. The men have a somewhat wierd appear- 

 ance — the darkness in which they pursue their daily toil 

 being made barely visible by two twinkling candles plastered, 

 with a dab of clay, against the rock, or, occasionally, in front 

 of the workman's hat, and frequently burning very badly 

 for lack of a sufficient supply of oxygen. The attitudes of 

 the men as they ply their melancholy toil are rather pictur- 

 esque, holding up and turning the jumper with the left hand, 

 whilst they keep driving it into the flinty rock with a hammer 

 held in the right. Having bored the holes to a sufficient 

 depth — say about eighteen or twenty inches — they clear 

 out the borings or fragments, proceed to charge with gun- 

 powder, and then, having uttered one or two warning shouts, 

 the precise sound of which it is impossible to realize, but 

 which consists of the simple monosyllable ' fire,' they light 

 the match and retire to await the result of the * shots.' The 

 ever-recurring thunder of these blasting reports reverberating 

 along the dismal levels — the pauses between them being 

 filled up by the rattling of the kibbles and chains in the 

 shafts — renders these mines by no means the peaceful place 

 that the denizens of upper air may suppose them to be, and 

 to visitors of ordinary nervous organization, has a bewilder- 

 ing, not to say an astounding effect. After the explosion the 

 men return to their working, and note carefully the effects of 

 the shots, breaking up the larger fragments, and carefully 



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