In many European mines, where the workmen are let down or raised by means of ropes, wire cables, or chains, they sometimes sit on transverse round pieces of wood or in a kind of chair, consisting of two strong leather belts, one of which serves as a seat, and the other for supporting the back. In Wielitzka ten of these chairs are attached to the cable at distances of seven or eight feet one from another. The persons seated in the uppermost and lowest chairs direct the descent, and take great care to prevent the conveyance grazing against the sides of the shaft, for were it to be hooked fast by a nail or any other projection, a fall into a deep precipice of several hundred feet would be the almost inevitable and fatal consequence. The old method of descending into a colliery was by a corf or strong basket, hooked on by a chain to the rope that hung down the shaft. Stepping into this, the men would swing down the dark hollow, gaily and readily, but not always safely. Thus, in the year 1835, in a colliery near Liège, seven workmen were already seated in a corf that was about to descend into the shaft, when one of their comrades, anxious to seize the opportunity, came hurrying along, and, in spite of all remonstrances, jumped into it; but the rope, unable to bear the shock and the increased weight, suddenly snapped, and all eight were precipitated into the abyss, from which not one of them came forth alive. In the Swedish mines small barrels or tuns are generally used as vehicles of descent, and the workmen are uncommonly dexterous in preventing their little aërial skiff from striking against the rugged rock-walls, when it would run the danger of being wrecked. Women, and even children, who find occupation in the mines, are often seen standing on the narrow edge of one of these swinging, turning, or oscillating tuns, with an arm slung round the rope; and such is the power of habit that they will quietly knit where even a stout-nerved man would be appalled by the frowning cliffs above or the black abyss below. In the year 1785 a girl, descending alone into the pit of Fahlun, and unable to direct the tun, could not prevent it from striking against a rock. Jerked out of her conveyance by the violence of the shock, she fell upon a narrow ledge, about one hundred feet from the bottom of the pit, to which she clung with all the energy of despair. Her position was indeed terrific, for the least motion would have precipitated her into the dark grave which seemed to yawn for her reception, and to have given her but a momentary respite in order to make her feel more bitterly the pangs of approaching death. Already her strength was giving way, already a cloud swam before her eyes, when some bold miners, venturing their own lives in the hazardous undertaking, succeeded in rescuing her from her awful position, and snatching her as it were from the very jaws of death.