It was midday, with the sun shining brightly, when the two men stepped upon the movable platform of the elevator, inside the shaft-house. In a few moments they were settling swiftly, but at a uniform rate of speed, down, down, as it seemed to the novice in such matters, even to the foundations of the globe. For a brief period they were in total darkness, and a sensation, as of seasickness, came over him. Still he clung to his support and the uncomfortable feeling soon left him. As the lower regions were reached, the traveler thought he would be far more content if again breathing the clear ether above. The system experienced absolute relief when the motion ceased, and the solid bottom of the shaft was touched. But here it was like entering a new sphere. There was dark above, below, and all around, only here and there relieved by dim little stars, which were continually dodging downward, sidewise, and upward, as though held by an unsteady hand. As his eyes acquired familiarity with the situation, he saw that to each one of these erratic satellites was attached the body of a living man—in fact, they were only diminutive lamps which the miners and their helpers wore above the visors of their hats to light them in their labors. The general effect produced in the sombre recesses of the excavation, and the strange and grotesque, as well as picturesque, shadows reflected back from the men’s figures upon the walls and buttresses and floors, all defy description, and must be seen to be understood. As far as the eye was able to penetrate, in every direction, almost, the nodding demon with the single, blazing orb, like a star, in the forehead, and bearing glistening pick and bar, and drill and spade, was industriously working away at the breast, tearing out the black diamonds, making more pillars, and piercing further into the lode. Wandering from point to point in pursuit of his errand, the boss kept on, and McKenna followed. In one place he was startled and nearly deafened by the, to him, unexpected explosion of a blast, close to his ear, as he thought, but really at quite a safe distance. He involuntarily jumped aside, expecting that he had been hit, but in a moment recovered his equanimity, seeing he was not injured. They were met on every side by a succession of heavy supports and gaping caverns, the former serving as props for the rocky roof, preventing the falling in of the ground resting above, and the latter leading to still other channels and gangways from which coal was being brought. The air seemed heavy-laden, damp, and unhealthy, and the path pursued, in many places, passed through lakelets of black water reaching sometimes above the ankles. All was bustle and activity with that army of underground toilers, drilling, blasting, loading, tunneling, tamping down blasts, laying trains, breaking away coal and running it down chutes to the floors, heaping it upon small trucks, which in turn transported it to the base of the entering shaft, whence