incessant rumbling over our heads, as though a procession of railway trains were out for the day. Large lumps of coal, dropped from the wagons, and cross-beams connecting the tram-rails, render the footing very precarious, and produce a very oscillating wave-like line of march. I am following the sable dustman; he suddenly flounders, flourishes his stick and his candle desperately for a moment; I see the white coat dash forward; I hear a shout and a hiss; the doctor's candle is in the gutter, and he is groping his way up to his feet again. We are more cautious, and find it necessary to stoop still lower; the stratification of the rock is pointed out to us, and we are told that this is a layer of coal, that of iron-stone, which, we believe from our boundless faith in Thomas's word, not that we see any thing to remind us of the contents of our scuttle at home, or of the handle of our pump. We go on so many hundred yards, but we do not count, when we come to a side cutting, and are conscious of a ghostly apparition at the entrance. It moves on; we might mistake it for a block of coal set up endways. It is a miner, who speaks, and his language seems exactly to harmonize with the place. The deep, guttural Welsh, from its utter incomprehensibility to us, seems, like the man, a part of the mine; and our reverence for Thomas rises when we find that this gibberish is as intelligible to him as all the other dark mysteries of the pit. This is a cutting where they are mining out the coal. At a short distance huge blocks are lying scattered over the path; the place is about four feet high and six feet broad. We are invited to enter and see the process of mining out a block. We seat ourselves on lumps of coal, and at the end of the hole we see a miner crouched upon the ground, hacking out a space about eighteen inches deep, into the coal at the bottom, forming a sort of recess wide enough to slip in a six inch drawer the whole width of the place; the labor of doing this is inconceivably great in the miner's cramped position; he pants loudly at every stroke of the pick, and breathes an atmosphere of thick coal dust. When he has scooped out the bottom place, he cuts, with a very sharp pick, a slice down each side, leaving the mass supported only by its hold above; a wedge is now driven in close to the ceiling, and with about a dozen heavy blows, down tumbles the whole mass, the miner and the little candle boy who lights him keeping a sharp look out to dart back just as the mass falls. Thus are we supplied with coal; and it is impossible to see these poor fellows toiling in those dark, stifling holes, crouching in positions that threaten dislocation to every joint, and with deep, rapid inspirations drawing in dust that must convert their lungs into so many coal-beds, without feeling how much of our comfort we owe to a race of men, the real character of whose labor is so little understood and appreciated. They are paid so much per ton,