of the gloom by nature; she cannot send her brightest sunbeam through three hundred feet of solid rock. If one is in the mines without a light, he has before him, behind him, everywhere, utter blackness. To be lost in this way, a mile from any opening to day, in the midst of a confusion of galleries, in an abandoned mine, and to be compelled to feel one’s way to safety, is a painful experience, is one indeed which the writer himself has had. There comes a time in the history of every mine when it is pervaded only by silence and darkness. All the coal that can be carried from it by the shaft or slope or other outlet has been mined and taken out, and the place is abandoned. But before this comes to pass the work of robbing the pillars must be done. This work consists in breaking from the pillars as much coal as can possibly be taken without too great risk to the workmen. The process is begun at the faces of the chambers, at the farthest extremity of the mine, and the work progresses constantly toward the shaft or other opening by which the coal thus obtained is taken out. It can readily be seen that robbing pillars is a dangerous business. For so soon as the column becomes too slender to support the roof it will give way and the slate and rock will come crashing down into the chamber. The workmen must be constantly on the alert, watchful for every sign of danger, but at the best some will be injured, some will perhaps be killed, by the falling masses from the roof. Yet this work must be done, otherwise coal mining would not be profitable, the waste would be too great. The coal that can be taken out under the prevailing systems will average only fifty per cent. of the whole body in the mine, and at least ten per cent. more will be lost in waste at the breaker, so that it behooves a company to have its pillars robbed as closely as possible. It is after all this has been done, and all tools and appliances have been removed from the mine, that it is abandoned. Perhaps the lower levels of it become filled with water. It is a waste of crushed pillars, fallen rock, and blocked passages. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of anything more weird and desolate than an abandoned mine. To walk or climb or creep through one is like walking with Dante through the regions of the lost. There are masses of rock piled up in great confusion to the jagged roof, dull surfaces of coal and slate, rotting timbers patched here and there with spots of snow-white fungus, black stretches of still water into which a bit of falling slate or coal will strike and send a thousand echoes rattling through the ghostly chambers. For a noise which on the surface of the earth will not break the quiet of a summer night, down here will almost make your heart stand still with fear, so startling is it in distinctness.