AN UNDERGROUND EXCURSION \±\ 



studded with the shells of molluscs which lived and en- 

 joyed existence when this limestone was the ocean's bed, 

 and the light of day shone down upon their quiet abodes 

 as it now shines upon the busy builders of the coral reef. 

 The light of day ! — but a day of God's eternity, which 

 dawned upon our planet before Elohim had said, "Let 

 us make man in our image." Rapidly through the belt 

 of limestone our little car descends, and we next find our- 

 selves environed by a wall of sandstone. Here and there 

 are streaks and patches of dark carbonaceous material, 

 and occasionally the eye catches glimpses of woody stems 

 imbedded in the solid rock. But hark ! a sound of water 

 rises from the darkness beneath. A subterranean stream 

 has been intercepted, and a little rill is trickling down the 

 massive wall-side. Again in the midst of black, bitumin- 

 ous shales; and now we hang suspended opposite an open- 

 ing in the stony wall. One hundred feet above our heads 

 the light of heaven is still visible, and three hundred feet 

 below are darkness and emptiness. On the right and the 

 left are entrances to chambers which have been excavated 

 in a seam of coal occurring at this level. But the end of 

 our journey is not here. Continuing to descend, we per- 

 ceive the bed of coal underlaid by clay, with abundant 

 2frass-like shoots and occasional stems of vegetation. In 

 turn we pass shales and sandstones, and then seams of 

 coal, till, at the depth of two hundred feet beneath the 

 surface, we hang before another portal to a long, dark 

 avenue excavated in a deeper-seated bed of coal. In 

 some of the dark and dusty chambers of the labyrinth 

 which opens here the miner's pick is heard resounding, 

 and now and then the muffled report of the miner's blast 

 comes echoing through the vaulted aisles. But this is not 

 the station where we intended to stop. Our car moves 

 on, and we plunge through two hundred feet more of the 



