1846.] Geological, of a trip to Carbondale. 9 



mines. Carbonic acid is constantly generated, but owing to ven- 

 tilators tunneled down into the galleries from above, and the draft 

 of air thus produced, it rarely accumulates to a dangerous extent in 

 the galleries which are worked. Accidents, considering the number 

 of men employed, are ordinarily rare, — not perhaps more frequent, 

 than they would be among the same number at work in a stone 

 quarry. 



Few children, I was most happy to learn, are employed in the 

 mines, and ordinarily only as drivers. There are many schools 

 in the village, and the miners and laborers, I was informed on 

 reliable authority, very generally keep their children at them, as 

 much as is common among the people of our country, I asked a 

 muier, a fine manly appearing Welshman by the name of Maxy, 

 if the children of the extremely indigent, orphans, etc., were per- 

 mitted to attend to schools. " To be sure they are — do you think 

 we would see it otherwise?" — was the decisive reply. 



The miners and laborers are almost exclusively foreigners, prin- 

 cipally Irish and Welsh. Among this heterogenous population 

 it would be expected, perhaps, that immorality and disorder would 

 prevail. Such is not the fact, apparently, to a greater extent than 

 in any of our manufacturing towns of the same size. I did not 

 see a drunken man in Carbondale. I strolled round among the 

 laborers' huts at twilight, and some were working in their gar- 

 dens, some quietly smoking their pipes in their doors, rarely more 

 than two or three congregated in a place, and I heard not a loud 

 or angry or improper w^ord — nothing like strife or confusion during 

 my stay. 



Much of this, as well as those systematic arrangements in and 

 about the mines which render the Delaware and Hudson company 

 one of the most successful in the United States, is due the officers 

 of the company. A more thoroughly able, practical, and energetic 

 set of men can not be found. Fill these offices with pampered 

 sons of stockholders — hungry nephews and needy cousins, and a 

 few months would i^itroduce disorders of every kind — and the 

 company would divide no more eight per cent semi-annual divi- 

 dends ! 



