C08 Transactions of tee American Institute. 



with flanged wheels to fit the rails, and their axles are journaled in 

 the angle-iron side pieces, which, connected by wrought iron plater, 

 constitute the running gear or framing of the truck upon which the 

 box or body of the car is placed. The latter is so connected to the 

 truck, or wheeled lower portion of the car, that it can be readily 

 tilted back to discharge the load, the rearmost end of the body being 

 hinged at top and held in place by a catch at bottom. This enables 

 the end to swing outward, and allow the " dumping " of the load 

 when the car is brought to its destination at the surface. Great 

 improvements have, of late years, been made in these cars, their 

 weight having been reduced about forty pounds by the judicious use 

 of wrought iron in their construction. This, of course, reduces the 

 weight lifted at each hoist to the extent of eighty pounds. It is pro- 

 posed to secure this advantage in a still greater degree by using steel 

 in lieu of iron. 



After this examination of the means employed in the subterrene, 

 and transporting the material, we continued on our way in a north- 

 erly direction, and reached, 400 feet from the shaft, a cross-cut from 

 the east, which communicates with the tunnels of the old north mine, 

 as it is called. The shaft of the latter, a thousand feet north of the 

 one now used, has been given up, its only present purpose being to 

 assist the ventilation of the workings. As we pass the cross-cut, the 

 cool fresh air coming in gives, for a moment, a sense of grateful 

 relief. After going on about a hundred feet farther we retraced our 

 steps, and going in southerly passed quite out of the Yellow Jacket 

 into and through the Kentucky, ninety-three feet, and then into a 

 " slope " in the Crown Point. This slope is a horizontal bed from 

 which ore,'of a very rich quality, is taken. The deposit has an aver- 

 age width of sixty feet, a length of two hundred and thirty, and an 

 ascertained depth of at least two hundred. How much deeper it 

 may be is unknown. Its discovery, some months ago, raised the 

 stock from three dollars per share to three hundred, as I was 

 informed ; and no wonder, for in a period of ninety days it enabled the 

 owners to divide among them forty dollars to the share. Here I saw 

 a fine example of the manner in which, in all these mines, the excava- 

 tions are filled in as the quartz is taken out, the fourteen-inch timbers 

 intersecting each other in squares six feet across. The quantity of 

 lumber, which is all pine or fir, required for such purposes may be 

 estimated from that used in the Yellow Jacket alone — 240,000 feet 

 per month. From the Crown Point we entered the Belcher, the 

 next adjoining mine on the south. Here we saw what had by this 



