P OL YTECHXIC A SSO CIA TION. 605 



more serious, and to supply the deficiency, iron pipes, zinced or galvan- 

 ized, are extended to the lowest recesses, and air-blasts are driven 

 through them from a rotary blower at the surface, operated by a 

 separate engine. Still another engine is devoted to working the 

 pumps by which the little water in the mine is lifted. This water, I 

 may remark, is somewhat impregnated with sulphuric acid, derived 

 by oxydation from the sulphuret of the silver-bearing rock, and pro- 

 ducing considerable mischief by corroding the metal air and water 

 conduits. 



After making notes of the details just set forth, I followed the 

 example of my conductor, in exchanging ordinary garments for a blue 

 flannel shirt and overalls, and then stepped with him upon one of the 

 cages. Down we went into the darkness, only dimly illuminated by 

 the red gleam of the lantern we carried. At stages a flash of light 

 showed us where a level opened into the shaft, with the men trolling 

 iron ore-cars to and from the farthest corners of the subterranean 

 passage ways and chambers. Soon we reached the lowest level, 

 1,130 feet below the surface and twenty feet above the extreme per- 

 pendicular depth of the shaft. Here we paused to look down, but 

 not to descend, the incline. We then entered a drift, where the 

 miners were busily at work loading the cars with the broken ore dis- 

 lodged by a previous blast, and running them to their outlet at the 

 shaft. The heat here was terrific; 110 degrees, said the captain, and 

 I needed no thermometer to confirm my belief in the assertion. The 

 miners work naked to the waist, an old pair of pantaloons, quite fre- 

 quently deficient in the matter of legs, being the only article of 

 raiment common among them while toiling in the steaming atmos- 

 phere. These miners, who, in physique and demeanor, compare 

 favorably w T ith an equal number of laboring men anywhere, are. 

 mostly Cornishmen. They are paid four dollars in gold per day, and 

 this high rate of wages being known abroad brings to the Nevada 

 mines the best and most adventurous of the class. There are from 

 1,500 to 2,000 miners, I was told, employed underground in the 

 ledge. Arrived at the foot of the shaft and at the entrance of the 

 lower level extending therefrom, the first thing noticed was the tracks 

 laid upon the floor or bottom of each drift, and the construction of 

 the ore-cars running upon them. The tracks have a gauge of about 

 twenty inches. The rails are not mere iron straps or bars, laid upon 

 wooden sills, as I have seen them in other mines, but miniature rails 

 of the most approved pattern used for above-ground railroads, from 

 which they differ only in size — being very light. The cars are made 



