ENTRANCE TO THE MINES. 337 



should be erected what will save them from desecra- 

 tion, and tell to the far-off generations how stoutly 

 they fought, and how bravely they fell in the cause 

 of their country. 



I went in company with my friend to the Palmer 

 Hill ore bed. This hill, which supplies at present 

 most of the forges with ore, rises from a level plain 

 to the height of perhaps two hundred feet, in a round, 

 conical form, having a diameter at its base of from 

 one and a half to two miles. The main opening to 

 the mines, or rather where the principal vein cropped 

 out, and where it was first worked, is near the top of 

 the hill. The vein pitched downward at an angle of 

 some forty-five degrees, and has been worked a vast 

 distance into the hill. As I approached one of these 

 vast openings, a stream of cold air came up, which in 

 the sultriness of the heat above was exceedingly re- 

 freshing. I stood looking away down into what to 

 me were unknown depths, where the darkness was 

 impenetrable, when a sound came up from the very 

 centre of the hill, louder to my ears than a hundred 

 cannon, and went bellowing, and roaring, and shak- 

 ing the earth as it reverberated among the drifts and 



deep excavations of the mines. I started back in af- 



15 



