"People who know very little of arts or sciences, or the powers of nature (which, in other words are the powers of the author of nature), will laugh at us Cardiganshire miners, who maintain the existence of "Knockers" in mines, a kind of good-natured impalpable people not to be seen, but heard, and who seem to us to work in the mines; that is to say, they are the types or forerunners of working in mines, as dreams are of some accidents, which happen to us. The barometer falls before rain, or storms. If we do not know the construction of it, we should call it a kind of dream that foretells rain; but we know it is natural, and produced by natural means, comprehended by us. Now, how are we sure, or anybody sure, but that our dreams are produced by the same natural means? There is some faint resemblance of this in the sense of hearing; the bird is killed before we hear the report of the gun. However, this is, I must speak well of the "Knockers," for they have actually stood my good-friends, whether they are aerial beings called spirits, or whether they are a people made of matter, not to be felt by our gross bodies, as air and fire and the like. "Before the discovery of the "Esgair y Mwyn" mine, these little people, as we call them here, worked hard there day and night; and there are honest, sober people, who have heard them, and some persons who have no notion of them or of mines either; but after the discovery of the great ore they were heard no more. When I began to work at Llwyn Llwyd, they worked so fresh there for a considerable time that they frightened some young workmen out of the work. 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 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. Three or four miners together shall hear them sometimes, but if the miners stop to take notice of them, the "knockers" will also stop; but, let the miners go on at their work, suppose it is "boring," the "knockers" will at the same time go on as brisk as can be in landing, "blasting." or beating down the "loose," and they are always heard a little distance from them before they come to the ore. "These are odd assertions, but they are certainly facts, though we cannot, and do not pretend to account for them. We have now very good ore at "Llwyn Llwyd," where the "knockers" were heard to work, but we have now yielded the place, and are no more heard. Let who will laugh, we have the greatest reason to rejoice, and thank the "knockers," or rather God, who sends us these notices."