adit, and tlie water is lifted to tliis height solely by hand-pumps, which shall 

 be described later. 



Neither for connecting the several horizons with each other, nor for establish- 

 ing communication between the subterranean works and the surface, are shafts 

 used; it is preferred to make slopes, which are often very tortuous. 



METHODS OF BEEAKING GROUND. 



The instruments here employed were until scarcely 20 }'ears ago, when Mr. 

 Pumpelli first used gunpowder for blasting purposes, confined to the pick, steel- 

 gad and crow-bar. In working with such insufficient implements, it would of 

 course be an object to reduce the dimeusions of the galleries to a minimum, and 

 as moreover joints and fissures in the rock were chosen preferentially on account 

 of the ground there being less hard, the result has been that the adits and gal- 

 leries are mostly very narrow and tortuous ill adapted both for a good ventila- 

 tion and extensive haulage and for the passage of Europeans. 



Although gunpowder has got into general use during the later decades, the 

 limited width of the galleries imposes the necessity of drilling only small holes, 

 or the big fragments of rock, by repeated blasting would have to be prepared 

 for haulage. The holes drilled single-handed are about 1" in diameter and 

 seldom more than II" English in length. The tampiug is generally done with 

 needle, a bamboo-tube, filled with gunpowder, is used as "squib" and cotton or 

 paper, dipped in oil, as " smift." Fuzes, both of European and of native make, 

 are however also frequently used. 



Eire-setting was also formerly known, although not used to any great extent, 

 and only as preparation for working with the pick and the gad. 



PEODUCTIVE WOEK. 



The productive work in veins has, I believe, always been done by a more or 

 less modified stopiug overhand. For the working of beds and irregular deposits 

 a kind of pillar-work, stock -work and piling have also been used. 



PAYING FOE THE OEE. 



The manner, in which the labor of winning the ores is paid for is that the 

 manager of the mine buys the extracted ores from contractors or middle 

 men, and pays for them according to weight and contents in metal. Each of 

 these middlemen has a number of workmen under him. The contents and 

 solidity of the ores, as well as other conditions of wiuning and haulage, vary 



