are wheeling away the coals from under the screens; and boys and barrows threaten you, and do any thing but bless you, on every side. Enough of screens and of black grass. There stands the engine-house we espied from the distance. This is the "winding engine," the beautifully finished steam-engine which draws up all loads from the mine, and will, we trust, wind us up also, after we have inspected the mine. That other engine is the "pumping engine," by means of which the ever threatening waters are extracted from below, and discharged in a perpetual stream under the eye of the sun. It is astonishing to learn the quantities of water pumped out of pits by some of these engines, when a "feeder," or sudden and unceasing spring, is broached. At one shaft, Haswell in Durham, the engine power erected has pumped "feeders" to the amount of 26,700 tons of water per diem. The strata pierced in sinking Monkwearmouth shaft yielded 3,000 gallons per minute. Other instances of 1,000 gallons per minute are not rare. In some cases, more water than coal is raised from the mine. the Murton sinking, Durham, it has been estimated, that no less than 8,000 gallons per minute issued from a depth of 70 or 80 fathoms.* At many collieries the accumulation of steampower is great; and at the colliery just named, the power of 570 horses is constantly exerted in effecting the discharge of the water, and the extraction of coal.

At

Before we descend the shaft, a few remarks on shafts in this vicinity may be interesting. Most of them are deep, but they vary greatly. The deepest perpendicular shaft in Britain, if not in the world, is that of Monkwearmouth mine, near Sunderland. It is 1,590 feet clear depth, or nearly equal to eight times the height of the Monument of London! That shaft we descended in a basket, or "corfe," some years since. Twelve shafts (their names are now before us) of selected pits which we have descended, compose, in their aggregate depth, eleven thousand seven hundred and eighty feet.

The cost of sinking such shafts, until the coal is attained, is generally great, and sometimes enormous. The shaft just spoken of at Monkwearmouth, cost nearly £100,000; but the most costly in the world, perhaps, was that of the Murton pit at South Hetton, Durham, which, owing to the peculiar obstacles encountered, was not completed for a much less sum than £300,000! The mere "tubbing" or lining costs about £60 or £70 per fathom, or six feet. The cost being commonly considerable, one shaft is usually made to serve many purposes, and is often divided by a partition, or "brattice," one division being a" downcast," and the other an "upcast," or chimney for the escape of the foul and heated air of the pit, after it has per

*This is the statement of Mr. Nicholas Wood, in his Inaugural Address, page 16.

It

formed all the purposes of ventilation, and, as a return current, is charged with vitiated air and poisonous gases. is not uncommon to descend by the upcast shaft, as being free from pumps and pit machinery. Our descent at Monkwearmouth was in an upcast shaft, and therefore equivalent to a trip down an enormous chimney, which is more than four times, and nearly five times, as deep as St. Paul's in London is high !*

The mode of descent here (and now commonly) is by a sliding cage, a kind of vertical railway carriage, the cage sliding upon upright rails. The older plan was by ropes; and wire ropes are still frequently employed, and much preferred by some to cages. Most adventurous habits were customary among the pitmen and lads in the use of the rope. Often, instead of employing the basket and rope, the lads would cling to the end of the latter only; and "riding in the loop" (that is, inserting one leg into a loop formed by hooking back the chain upon itself at the end of the pit-rope) was a favourite mode of descending. We once rode the loop ourselves, but felt more than uncomfortable while swinging in quasi-vacuo and in tenebris. Fathers have been seen "to ride in loop," and bring up on their knees one or two boys asleep after the day's work in the pit. We once watched a returning party clustering round and clinging to the rope-end on returning to the light of day, as a pitman expressively said, "like a string of ingins" (onions).

Let us now enter the cage for ourselves. All is ready: you must crouch down, and keep your arms and limbs carefully from projection on any side, or they may be amputated in the descent. Now we are in, and now we are off! Rather a strange sensation to a first visitor:-crouched in the most limited space, "cabined, cribbed, and confined" in an iron cage or compartment, in impenetrable darkness, and feeling that you are sinking down in the earth at a rapid rate, not knowing where or when you will stop, or how you will fare when you do stop. Three or four minutes, or five at most, will put an end to your descent and your doubts. Hold! here we are at the bottom. Now come forth! True, you see nothing at this moment but that feebly glimmering oil-lamp which hangs at the bottom of the Half-a-dozen black and begrimed human beings are

shaft.

* This shaft is the most appalling; but the Northern shafts in general, on account of their depth, are forbidding to visitors. The stoutest men seem afraid to descend the first time. We may felicitate ourselves on being more courageous than even the late famous Emperor Nicholas; for when he was Grand Duke, he visited Wall's-End, and desired to descend the pit. The late Mr. Buddle was the manager, and prepared all things. The Grand Duke arrayed himself in a miner's dress, and marched to the pit's mouth; but even he was smitten with fear, when he glanced at the black, yawning, smoking shaft; and, having again asked its depth, he suddenly beat a retreat, exclaiming, "My God! it is the very mouth of -!" Casting off his miner's dress, he took a

hasty leave of the unvisited Wall's-End pit.

gathering around us. Let us sit here on this log of wood one minute, until our eyes become accustomed to the darkness.

66

Now we must proceed into the interior of the pit. Here comes the "overman," to accompany us with the "underviewer." Take that lump of moist clay which the "overman" offers; it is the universal pit candlestick. Fix a pit candle (forty to the pound) in the clay, and the clay between the fingers of your left hand; grasp this stick in your right; thump down the pitman's round cap on your head; and, having ranged yourself behind the "overman," wait for marching orders. March! Now proceed all is easy enough for the first half-mile; for we are traversing the main road or highway of the pit,-the Cheapside or Fleet Street of the subterranean city. It is only in the interior parts, the narrow lanes and side streets,—that we shall suffer inconvenience. By elevating your candle you may see how like a railroad tunnel this excavation is, having been carried through hard sandstone and shale. On the floor are two lines of railway for the transit of the coal waggons; on these trams the entire "rolling stock" of the pit runs.* It is like the main trunk line of a superterranean railway, and all the passages of the pit conduct to it, and increase its traffic. There, a great distance before us, do you not observe a light glimmering like a small star? and do you not now hear the whistling and driving exclamations of some unseen human being? That is a "driver," coming up with his train of coal waggons, laden in the interior, and now creaking and grating along the "trams." foremost waggon of the train sits the lad who lashes the little horse or pony that draws this luggage train of carriages, small in size, but long in extent and many in number. The terminus of this train is the bottom of the shaft, whence the waggons will be drawn up at a speedy rate, the average speed being, in this shaft, about thirteen feet per second. Here we are stopped by a large wooden door. Is it designed to bar all access to the interior? No: it is erected for purposes of ventilation, to regulate the direction of the ventilating current. Hark! how the air whistles against this door, now that you apply your ear to it! It seemed to open by invisible agency, when the overman knocked at it. But the opener was that little specimen of pit humanity crouching behind it in the corner there. He is the "trapper-boy." We have seen boys of eight and nine years of age tending such doors; but now, by Act of Parliament, (5 and 6 Vic., c. 99,) no boy under ten years of age can be admitted into mines; and, by the same Act, all females are excluded from subterranean mining labour. None were employed in this district, but thousands laboured disgracefully in other districts. These trap-doors act like weirs or dams in currents. Many of the explosions have

On the

* In the great Hetton colliery there are forty miles of single railway under ground.

Subterranean Mainways and Railways.

39

occurred by the negligent opening of a trap-door, whereby the whole ventilating system of the pit has shortly become deranged. We were once visiting a pit near Newcastle, where thirty-two lives had been sacrificed the day before, by the supposed neglect of a door by a little trapper, who perished in the catastrophe he had caused. When a strong and heavy current of air ventilates the pit, you may hear, on the off-side of each door, the rush of the air like a steady wind in a forest. On some occasions, this noise is so audible, that the pitmen exclaim, "The doors are a-singing!”

We will now soon pass out of the mainways of the pit, which vary in height from seven feet to five feet eight inches, into the narrower and difficult galleries of the mine. These are generally of the same height as the seam of coal: sometimes they are five feet, and sometimes less. Now and then, we have been unable to bend low enough for the passage; and, after having excoriated our back or shoulders, we have obtained a "rolley," or waggon-truck, thrown ourselves flat upon it, and hired a pit lad to draw us through the passages. The stunted stature of most of the genuine and thorough-bred pitmen is attributed to habitual stooping, and to the confined scene of their labours. Here the gallery becomes lower, and you must bend as much as possible; for we both are too tall for comfort in coal pits. Be careful of your cranium; for projecting stones from the roof may prove serious enemies to wholeness of head.

What is the awful din and clamour now saluting our ears? It is a set of "putters," or lads, who are pushing a set of waggons from the recesses of the mine along these narrow passages upon rickety trams to the crane, by which they are hoisted on the rolleys or trucks for the drivers, one of whose trains we have just passed. On, on they hurry. You now see that two little fellows are harnessed to a train of coal-tubs; they tug like little draymen's ponies. Two are harnessed behind to push with all their force; a big lad, the "headsman," overrules the band, and pushes with a might that the patients in the Hospital for Consumption would envy. The loads thus pushed will vary from six to eight hundredweight. All their muscles are greatly developed; and the big lads look a set of the fiercest blackamoors you ever beheld. The noise and shouting are terrific in this limited space; and you must squeeze yourself flat against the wall to permit that roystering, rollicking, clamorous, and quarrelsome set of youths to pass you without your suffering personal detriment.

And now for the "hewers" of the coal,-we shall be with some of them in a few minutes. The overman turns aside here; we follow him, or creep after him; and quadrupedal imitation is the best course here. There hangs a feebly shining Davy lamp against the coal-wall; a stifling cloud of coal-dust fills one's

eyes, and ears, and nose, and throat. The air is visibly thick, clinging heavily around, like damp mist in a valley. When you can see at all clearly by the aid of your own Davy lamp, (for your candle was exchanged for a "Davy" before you entered this dangerous and gaseous region of the mine,) you discover yourself to be in one of the innermost workshops of the pit. Four or five men are hewing at the coal with short pickaxes. The seam being not very broad, they are posited in various, but painful, positions. One is squatting and using his pick over his head; another finds it better to lie along on his side and excavate sideways; another, wishing to penetrate far in, lies headways towards the coal. Behind them stand a few tubs, and into these the coal is shovelled, when torn down by the hewer. Where uncovered candles can be safely used, (that is, where there is no danger of explosion,) you have more light, and some cheerfulness. Then, too, gunpowder can be inserted into the coal seam, and the mineral blasted. When you are in a dangerous pit, and for the first time hear one of these "shots fired," the effect is startling,-and alarming, if you, being at some distance, unhappily mistake it for an explosion of gas. The sound is dull and booming, and rather growls than rings, through all the line of galleries, like muffled guns.

The hewer's toil is most severe. Probably, there is no other kind of labour so painfully severe for the time it lasts; but that time is limited to about six hours in the twenty-four. He is generally bathed in perspiration, covered with coal-dust,-and with very little else; for he works as nearly in puris naturalibus as possible. He is ready at any moment, in or out of the pit, to grumble most clamorously at his hard lot; and he certainly does not appear to be a very fine specimen of human proportions. His head is oddly thrown back, his chest much developed, his legs are commonly bowed, and his arms suspended by his side in a peculiar swinging manner; his face is as pale as the coal is black, and his stature is, on the whole, diminutive. These features of the outward man belong almost entirely to the whole race of Newcastle miners; and you may distinguish them in any crowd in the town. But, on Sunday, the hewer and the miners in general appear in black coats, and other grave, sober habiliments, and frequent some of the numerous Methodist chapels which are sprinkled all over the mining districts.

We shall be too much fatigued to penetrate much farther into the interior of the pit, and we should never come to an end, at least in one day; for, this being a very old pit, there are excavations several miles under ground. In the course of years a set of passages of astonishing length, if placed lengthwise in succession, may be opened. Of one of the oldest and largest pits near Newcastle it has been estimated, as a conjecture, that there are no less than 160 miles of excavated passages; but if this is extreme, there