LEAD MINES, &c.—BOOK II. 
149 
thrown out of them, covering sometimes fifty acres or more.— 
With two or three exceptions, there is scarcely any place 
which might be termed mining. There is but one shaft, 
which is at the Mine a Burton, and sunk by Moses Austin. The 
miners usually work them upon their own account, and dispose 
of their ore to the smelters; there are some, however, who hire 
hands by the month, or employ slaves. But experience has 
shewn that it is best for the interests of both the digger and 
the smelter to pursue the first mode; from the chance to the 
one of falling upon a good body of ore, and to the other of the 
general uncertainty; the keeping a number of persons in con¬ 
stant pay for a length of time before he would be remunerated 
by a profitable discovery. If mining were carried on in a proper 
manner, the case would be different; the profits might then be 
susceptible of calculation, but this scratching the surface of the 
earth cannot be attended with certainty. To find a large body of 
ore, so near the surface, although not unfrequent, yet cannot be 
depended upon; it is little better than a lottery. The miners 
have a variety of rules amongst themselves, to prevent disputes 
in diggings. Each one takes a pole, and measures off twelve 
feet in every direction from the edge; the pits seldom exceed 
eight or ten feet in diameter. He is not permitted to undermine 
farther than his twelve feet, but must dig a new pit if the ground 
=be not occupied. The only instruments are a pick, wooden shoi- 
vei, and a sledge hammer, to break rocks. The ore delivered 
at the pit, sells from twenty to twenty-five dollars per thousand 
lbs. A digger will sometimes raise two thousand in one day, but 
notwithstanding, these people do not grow rich faster than their 
neighbours. What is easily earned is carelessly spent; and be¬ 
sides, it often happens that the miner will work for months with¬ 
out making a cent, before he has the luck of lighting on this 
■treasure. It sometimes happens that he will quit in despair, a 
pit at which he has been laboring for months, while another 
leaps in, and after a few hours work, falls upon a body of ore that 
would have rewarded the labors of the first. The appearance 
pf ore in a pit which has been the work of a few days, is fre¬ 
quently such as to enable him to sell it for four or five hundred 
dollars. This kind of gaming, for it scarcely deserves any other 
