Minelayer

“ Officers and men felt intense pride in their ships, and spared no effort to keep them in regular man-of-war condition. The ten made a handsome squadron, and in capacity for carrying mines, in equipment for handling and planting them continuously, and general arrangement and quality, the new American minelayers were admittedly superior to any others. ”

“ Swallows have built beneath the rafters of the miners' sheds, at evening bats fly in and out at the open doors, and a pair of screech-owls that have taken up their abode declare the place as desolate. There is only one person in the country-side who has yet any lingering faith in the railway, the mine, or the mountain. This is an old miner, himself like a nugget of iron ore. He has infinite faith in a deep compensating future, and bides his time. When mellowed by ale and the soothing fumes of a short black pipe, he assures you that he will stand by the mountain through fair weather or foul. ”

“ A gloomy-faced miner was I, as I sprang from below in the mine.
And though on their temples a diadem scattered its rays,
Each of them flinched as he met my gaze,
My clenched list, and my stubborn scorn,
The wrath of the miner who up on the Beskyds was born.
So scant is my blood, and now from my mouth
It flows.
When there grows
Above me the grass, when my body decays,
Who will relieve me on guard? ”

“ In some of the dark and dusty chambers which open here the miner's pick is heard, 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 are intended to stop. Our car moves on, and we plunge through two hundred feet more of the rocky rind of the earth. Above us the mouth of the shaft seems narrowed into an insignificant hole; before us opens a dark street, over which, on a tramway, mules are hauling carloads of coal, which is starting on its way to the surface. Miners with picks are moving to and fro ”

“ I am twenty-nine years of age, and have been for some years engaged in various capacities in the many departments of the underground workings of the Kimberley diamond mines. During that period I have witnessed many hairbreadth escapes from the innumerable perils of the treacherous subterranean workings, and have seen men launched into eternity in a single second by one or other of those unavoidable happenings which of necessity form part of the miner’s precarious occupation. ”

“ If they stopped for a moment they could hear everywhere around them, some nearer, some farther off, the sounds of their companions burrowing away in all directions in the inside of the great mountain—some boring holes in the rock in order to blow it up with gunpowder, others shoveling the broken ore into baskets to be carried to the mouth of the mine, others hitting away with their pickaxes. Sometimes, if the miner was in a very lonely part, he would hear only a tap-tapping, no louder than that of a woodpecker, for the sound would come from a great distance off through the solid mountain rock. ”

“ This was when we were driving levels, and before we had got any ore; but when we came to the ore, they then gave over, and I heard no more talk of them. Our old miners are no more concerned at hearing them “blasting,” boring holes, landing “deads,” etc., than if they were some of their own people; and a [137] single miner will stay in the work, in the dead of night, without any man near him, and never think of any fear of any harm they will do him. The miners have a notion that the “knockers” are of their own tribe and profession, and are a harmless people who mean well. ”

“ As we sat together in a secluded place in the mines, with the faint light of my miner's lamp falling on his hideous face, the cool, deliberate manner in which he related his atrocious doings, the fiendish spirit he displayed, led me to regard him as one among the most debased and hardened criminals I had met in the mines—a human being utterly devoid of moral nature—a very devil in the form of man! ”

“ The miner should not start mining operations in a district which is oppressed by a tyrant, but should carefully consider if in the vicinity there is any other locality suitable for mining and make up his mind if the overlord there be friendly or inimical. If he be inimical the mine will be rendered unsafe through hostile attacks, in one of which all of the gold or silver, or other mineral products, laboriously collected with much cost, will be taken away from the owner and his workmen will be struck with terror ”

“ They seldom harm a miner, and when one has perished in the mine they make it known to his family by three knocks on his door. They may be heard quarrelling among themselves and hitting at one another with their axes, or blowing their horns as a signal of battle. ”

“ Miners—hundreds of them—were brought from neighboring mines, and they worked night and day on two-hour shifts, clinging to the sides of the shaft as thick as bees in a hive. Others, risking their lives with every stroke of the pick, dug away at the earth and rock that had fallen on the big chunk of machinery. With all the speed that human effort could compass, it was six days and nights before a hole had been made through the obstruction big enough for a man to pass. ”

“ A similar sacrifice in the shape of pillars is often necessary to support the surface, either to avoid injury to valuable structures or to prevent a flooding of the mine. As already noted large pillars must always be left to protect shafts, adits and the more important mine-passages necessary for drainage, ventilation and the haulage of mineral. In the early history of mining there was but little attempt at systematic development and working, and the mines were often irregular and tortuous. ”

“ The miners found what the great banks have always found, that the presence of unused gold is a nuisance and a curse. They had to lug the gold in leather sacks with them to their work, and back with them to their shacks, and they always carried firearms ready for use. There was very little shooting at the mines, but if a bad man 'turned up missing,' no one {89} asked whether he had 'hoofed' it down the trail, or whether he hung as a sign of warning from a pole set horizontally at a proper height between two trees. ”

“ In this employment they enjoy a much purer air, and a much less constrained posture than will be their portion when they are a few years older. The occupation of the common miner, as formerly mentioned, consists essentially in breaking down the metalliferous vein or lode, and the surface of the bounding rock on either side, by means of the pickaxe and lever, and the more powerful arm of gunpowder. Where the lode and rock are not very hard, and can be excavated by the former, these only are used. This, however, is rare even in the killas districts, for any considerable extent ”

“ Therefore a miner, since we think he ought to be a good and serious man, should not make use of an enchanted twig, because if he is prudent and skilled in the natural signs, he understands that a forked stick is of no use to him, for as I have said before, there are the natural indications of the veins which he can see for himself without the help of twigs.
So if Nature or chance should indicate a locality suitable for mining, the miner should dig his trenches there; if no vein appears he must dig numerous trenches until he discovers an outcrop of a vein. ”

“ The workings of this mine extend at least seventy fathoms in length under the bed of the sea; and in these caverns of darkness are many human beings, for a small pittance, and even that of a precarious amount, constantly digging for ore, regardless of the horrors which surround them, and of the roar of the Atlantic ocean, whose boisterous waves are incessantly rolling over their heads. We should feel pity for the wretch who, [134] as an atonement for his crimes, should be compelled to undergo the task which the Cornish miner voluntarily undertakes, and as cheerfully performs ”

“ A miner who meets a woman, when he starts for his work in the morning, will turn back again, as the day has become unlucky for him. Any unexpected event in the mine is sure to awaken all his old-world ‘freits.’ If any of his comrades should, by the falling of part of the roof of the mine, be crushed to death, he dreads to continue his ordinary work so long as a corpse remains in the pit, and will spare himself no labour until he has tunnelled through the fallen roof. ”

“ I done! said I—not I; the divining-rod is right enough. Look, they buried the old 'oss wi' her four shoes on. The rod told the truth—but mark you, her didn't say how much metal was underground."
The endurance and coolness of the miner are remarkable. But an instance or two will show this better than by dilating on the fact.
At a certain mine, called Drakewalls, the shaft crumbled in. It was sunk through a sandy or rubbly matter that had no cohesion. When it ran in there were below two miners. ”

“ In complete mining equipment, with candles stuck by lumps of clay to their felt hats, the travellers have painfully descended by perpendicular ladders and along dripping-wet rock passages, fathoms down into pitchy darkness; the miner who guides them calls a halt. ”

“ Nothing so startles a mining community as to have this signal come from underground. It may mean death and disaster. It surely means that there are injured men to be brought up to the surface, and the time elapsing before their arrival is always filled with deepest anxiety.
[Pg 51]
It was so in the present case, and when the cage containing the two battered miners, one of whom had also every appearance of being dead, emerged from the shaft, a throng of spectators was waiting to greet it. ”

“ The miners listened in silence to the words of the overseer, whose words sounded hollowly. The flame of the torch quivered, agitated by currents of air coming from all sides.
"Shall we wait here?" suggested a miner timidly.
"Wait for what?"
"Perhaps help will come from outside."
"What help can one hope for, when the mine has entirely collapsed? This gallery, moreover, affords no safety. When the one we have just left falls in, this will not resist long." ”

“ Miners are dressed as their ancestors were hundreds of years ago, and they cling pertinaciously to their ancient usages. In some workings prayers are offered up, led by the engineer, before the miners descend to their work, while they stand grouped round him at the opening of the mine, a custom which might well be adopted in our own country. The German miner retains also the superstitions of his forefathers, and still believes in the genii of the mines, named Nickel and Kobald, after whom he has called two metals, nickel and cobalt, originally discovered in the mines of Saxony. ”

“ To this day it is considered unlucky to make the form of a cross on the sides of a mine, and when underground you may on no account whistle for fear of vexing the knockers and bringing ill-luck, but you may sing or even swear [5] without producing any bad effect. Down one mine-shaft a black goat is often seen to descend, but is never met below; in another mine a white rabbit forbodes an accident. A hand clasping the ladder and coming down with, or after a miner, foretells misfortune or death. This superstition prevails, too, in the slate quarries of the eastern part of the county. ”

“ The most dangerous operation is the opening of a new passage, from which foul air may suddenly escape and poison the miners inhaling it, or a stream of water may rush forth, rilling up the gallery, and drowning all within its reach. Numberless, indeed, are the dangers to which miners are exposed. ”

“ All the miners, like men who have been in prison a long time, had sallow complexions and listless faces. What with lack of sunlight, and coal dust and air full of obnoxious gases, and abnormal temperatures and pressures, they could notice their own bodies deteriorate. “If you were a miner for seven or eight years, then for roughly four or five years out of it you were in a pit of darkness, without one chance of ever worshipping the sun—for four or five years!” ”

“ Some years since, at Gold Hill, a dog fell into a shaft across which he attempted to jump, and killed two men who were at work at its bottom, three hundred feet below the surface.
So many men have been killed in all of the principal mines that there is hardly a mine on the lead that does not contain ghosts, if we are to believe what the miners say. ”

“ Mrs Gilbart waited on, hope not yet abandoned. More men came up, some fearfully injured. They reported that the rest were in the workings far away—already the mine was on fire, the heat and smoke unbearable—that it was a miracle any had escaped, that all but themselves must have perished. Heartrending were the wailings and shrieks and moanings which arose at this announcement, confirmed by the viewer and overmen. Still many lingered on in the hopes that the corve might be again sent down, but the viewer forbade any to descend, as it must prove their destruction. ”

“ Recent correspondence in the newspapers has proved that, whatever may be the truth about the 'twig,' belief in its powers is still very prevalent. Respectable people are not ashamed to bear signed witness of its miraculous powers of detecting springs of water and secret mines. It is habitually used by the miners in the Mendips, as Mr. Woodward found ten years ago; and forked hazel divining rods from the Mendips are a recognised part of ethnological collections. There are two ways of investigating the facts or fancies about the rod. ”