SILVER ISLET. In Lake Superior, near its northern shore, a mere speck of land, scarcely two hundred feet square, barely shows itself above the water. This is Silver Islet, and on it sinks the shaft of the richest silver mine in the world. Covering almost its entire dimensions, stand two buildings. One, a low frame house, encloses the mouth of the mine, and the other, immediately adjacent, a small wooden structure, forms the watch-tower. Through this tower, every evening, the miners, when dismissed for the day, are compelled to pass out one by one, and submit themselves to an examination, where their clothes are thoroughly searched, that none of the precious metal may be carried away secreted upon the person. So extreme is the vigilance employed that visitors are never allowed, except by special permit, and though isolated upon the waters, the place is kept by day and night under this strict martial surveillance. To the north, about a quarter of a mile distant, is another island, perhaps six or eight acres in extent. It is high and rocky, and in one place reaches up more than a hundred feet. Here, built upon its sloping side, is the little settlement that could count up altogether, it might be, thirty houses. Here the miners live with their families. Here, too, every thing that pertains to the business of the place carries itself on; and here it was that father had brought me to stay. I was about eighteen years old then. I do not know how father happened to receive the position of assistant overseer at the mine. I never knew very much about father. Indeed I had hardly seen him more than half a dozen times in my life, until that day he came to take me from the farm. I could not remember my mother, who died in my infancy, and brother or sister I had none. Father was a morose, unsociable man by nature, and I think he cared but very little for me. I had been left at my uncle’s to grow up, and so, as I said, about him I knew almost nothing.