The Mines and its WondersKingston, William Henry Giles
History
The Mines and its Wonders
Kingston, William Henry Giles
Miners -- Juvenile fiction; Mines and mineral resources -- Juvenile fiction; Mothers and sons -- Juvenile fiction
For many years a blind man worked in the Botallack Mine, and supported a
large family by his labour. So complete was his recollection of every
turning and winding, that he became a guide to his fellow-labourers,
when by any accident their lights were extinguished. He being
afterwards cruelly discharged, engaged himself as an attendant to some
bricklayers. While thus employed, with a hod of mortar on his back, he
fell from a platform and was killed.
There are several other mines similarly situated to that of the
Botallack on the coast of Cornwall, where the works are carried far
under the ocean. Among them are the Wheal Edward, the Levant, the Wheal
Cock, and the Little Bounds. In the two latter, the miners have
actually followed the ore upwards until the sea itself has been reached,
but the openings formed were so small that they were able to exclude the
water, by plugging them with wood and cement.
On returning from the mine, the travellers, having doffed their miners'
dresses, inspected the outward machinery employed in crushing the ore on
the landing-place in the side of the cliff, and drawing it up the
precipitous tram, which leads to the summit, where it is stamped and
prepared for exportation. It is mostly carried to Swansea, which, in
consequence of the abundance of fuel in the neighbourhood, owing to its
nearness to the sea, to its canals and railroads, has, in the course of
half-a-century, from a mere fishing village become a town containing
fully 40,000 inhabitants.
The Cornish mines are not the only ones which run under the sea. On the
Irish and some parts of the English coasts there are several coal mines
which are worked beneath the ocean bed to a great distance.
Another remarkable mine, that of Huelwherry, existed for many years on
the Cornish coast. A rocky spot at about 120 fathoms from the beach was
left dry at low-water, on which small veins of tin ore were discovered
crossing each other in every direction. Although the surface was
covered for about ten months in the year, and had at spring-tides
nineteen feet of water over it, while a heavy surf often broke on the
shore, a poor miner, named Thomas Curtis, about a century ago determined
to attempt winning the ore. The work could only be carried on during
the short time the rock appeared above water. Three summers were spent
in sinking the pump-shaft, which had every tide to be emptied of water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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