it was elevated by steam power to the breaker, high above ground. Over all were heard the sounds of the pumps, clangor of chains, and rattling of picks, making harsh and jagged music, to the strains of which the work advanced. It was no pleasant place to remain in, especially as a looker-on, and McKenna was not illy pleased when the boss, taking advantage of the ascent of a loaded elevator, asked him to return to the region of daylight. The sensation experienced upon again encountering the sunshine was painfully peculiar, the bright blaze almost blinding him during the first few moments of the change. But presently the retina was brought in conformity with the surroundings, and eyesight was fully restored. [Illustration: “_‘This will steady your nerves,’ said Kehoe!_”] The breaker in which the coal is crushed, sorted, and prepared for use, in its different sizes, is a long, dark, high and sloping-roofed structure, generally of wood, to the uttermost peak of which, almost, the anthracite, in lumps weighing ten, one hundred, and three hundred pounds, is raised by the steam elevator—that is in shaft-mining—and there emptied, or dumped into a huge hopper, or funnel, leading direct to the crushing machinery. This consists of two immensely large and heavy iron cylinders, provided with massive teeth which, when the rollers revolve, munch the coal into larger and smaller fragments, producing a crunching, grating sound, and finally casting it into a channel beneath that conveys it to a succession of screens, through which it is run, separating the coarser from the finer sizes. Under these immense sieves come other sluices, still on an incline, and, after having the slate abstracted by the hands of a gang of boys, engaged for the purpose, the chestnut, range, stove, little egg, large egg, and steamboat coal glides to the storehouse by the railway track, or, if need be, direct to the cars in which it is transported to market. The culm—or refuse coal, slate, and waste—is carried off and piled in high embankments, by man and mule power. It is dumped at the outer end of the temporary track, much after the style of a car-load of dirt in building a grade for a railway. These residue heaps dot the coal regions, as dark notes of admiration, showing to the traveler the great amount of riches from which they have been eliminated and how vast the aggregate of wealth yet remaining in the bosom of prolific mother earth.