MINES 259 



experience are requisite to enable them to carry these lights in a current of air, or in 

 a vitiated atmosphere. It is especially in coal mines liable to the disengagement of 

 carburetted hydrogen, or fire-damp, that measures of precaution are indispensable 

 against explosions. The appearance of any halo round the flame must be carefully 

 watched, as indicating danger, and the lights should be carried near the bottom of tho 

 gallery. The great protectors against these deplorable accidents are ventilation and 

 the safety-lamp. See SAFETY-LAMP. 



We cannot conclude this general outline of the working of mines without giving 

 some account of the miners. Most men have a horror at the idea of burying them- 

 selves, even for a short period, in these gloomy recesses of the earth. Hence mining 

 operations were at first so much dreaded, that in early times they could only be 

 carried on by the employment of slaves. This dislike has diminished in proportion 

 to the improvements made in mining ; and finally, a profitable and respected source 

 of gain, requiring a more than average exercise of skill and intellect, has given mining 

 its proper rank among the other branches of industry ; and that esprit de corps, so 

 conspicuous among seamen, has also arisen among miners, and adds dignity to their 

 body. Like every society of men engaged in perilous enterprise, and cherishing the 

 hopes of great success, miners get attached to their profession, which, as they advance 

 in intelligence, they regard with pride, and eventually in their old age they look 

 upon other occupations with something like contempt. They form in certain 

 countries, such as Germany and Sweden, a body formally constituted, which enjoys 

 considerable privileges ; and the disgrace of being ejected from that body appears 

 to exert in those countries a good moral influence. Miners work usually for eight 

 hours at a time, this being called a core or hift (paste in French, Schicht in 

 German). 



Miners wear in general a hat or cap capable of withstanding a blow, and a dress 

 suited to protect them as much as possible from the annoyances caused by water, 

 mud, or strong draughts of air. One of the most essential parts of the costume of 

 the German miner is an apron of leather, fitted on behind, so as to protect him when 

 seated on a moist surface or on angular rubbish. lu England the miners mostly 

 wear flannel next to the skin, though chey frequently in deep mines strip off all their 

 clothes except their trousers. In most countries the hammer and small pick or wedge, 

 the instruments with which before the employment of gunpowder all mining was per- 

 formed (called in German, Schldgel and Eisen), disposed in a St. Andrew's cross, are 

 the badge of miners, and are engraved on their buttons, and on everything belonging 

 to mines. 



Many of the enterprises executed in mines, or in subserviency to them, occupy a 

 distinguished rank in the history of human labours. Several mines in the Hartz, in 

 Bohemia, and in Cornwall, have been worked to a depth of above and near 2,000 feet ; 

 those, indeed, of Kuttenberg in Bohemia are said to have penetrated to 3,000 feet 

 below the surface of the soil. 



A great many descend beneath the level of the ocean ; and a few even extend far 

 under its billows, and are separated from them by a thin partition of rock, which 

 allows their noise and the rolling of the pebbles to be heard. 



In 1792 there was opened at Valenciana in Mexico, an octagonal pit, fully 7-J- yards 

 wide, destined to have a depth of 560 yards, to occupy 23 years in sinking, and to 

 cost 240,000^. 



The great drainage-gallery of the mines of Clausthal, in the Hartz, is 11,377 yards, 

 or 6^ miles long, and passes upwards of 300 yards below the church of Clausthal. 

 Its excavation was commenced at thirty different points, lasted from the year 1777 

 till 1800, and cost about 66,0001. This adit, known as the Georg Stolln, having 

 been found inadequate to the drainage of the mines, a deeper gallery was commenced 

 in 1851. This deep adit, known as the Ernst August Stolln, was completed in 1864. 

 at a cost of 85,500/. The great adit (which drains so many of the important mines 

 in the parish of Gwennap in Cornwall to the depth of from 30 to 60 fathoms) 

 amounts, with its branches, to 30 miles in length. Several other galleries of efflux 

 might also be adduced as remarkable for their great length and expense of formation. 



The coal and iron mines subservient to the iron-works of Mr. Crawshay, at Merthyr- 

 Tydvil, in Wales, has given birth to the establishment, interiorly and above ground, 

 of iron railways, whose total length, many years ago, was upwards of 100 miles. 



The carriage of tho coal extracted from the mines in the neighbourhood of New- 

 castle to their points of embarkation is executed almost entirely, both under ground 

 and on the surface, on iron railways, extending over some thousands of miles. 



There is no species of labour which calls for so great a development of power as 

 that of mines ; and accordingly it may be doubted if (with the exception of some few 

 engines for the large ocean-steamers) man has ever constructed machines so powerful 

 as those which are now employed for the working of some mineral excavations. Tho 



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