To most people the underground life of the miner is a mystery. Comparatively few of those who walk the earth to-day have ever been farther within it than to the bottom of a cellar; and in many localities even this experience has been denied to the inhabitants, for the reason that no cellars are found there. If an enumeration were made to-day of all persons in the United States who have ever been underground more than fifty feet from the surface, and more than one hour at a time, the number would be found surprisingly small. I once accompanied a gentleman from Boston in a descent into a mine a hundred feet in depth, and having a single gallery about eighty feet long, leading from the foot of the shaft. It was an old story to me, but a new one to my Boston friend, who clung to the rope of our bucket as convulsively as a drowning man would clutch a life buoy. When we reached the bottom, and crept along the low gallery, his heart beat violently, and he several times wished himself safe above ground. When we finished our exploration, and returned to the upper air, I asked him what he thought of the mine. “Most wonderful thing I ever saw,” he replied. “I never knew much about mines, and didn’t suppose they were so deep. Wonderful, certainly.” “What would you think,” I asked, “if I should take you into a mine twenty times as deep as this, and having miles of galleries underground, where you could walk a whole day without going through all of them?” His face assumed the most puzzled expression I ever saw on a human being, and he was speechless for a full minute. When he regained his voice, he said,— “You might tell me of such a mine, and I should be obliged to believe you, though I can hardly conceive one could be made so large. But as for taking me into such a place, you could never do it without tying me and carrying me there. Catch me in such a place as that, never.” I told him the story of the boy who went from home for the first time in his life to accompany his father to a grist-mill, about three miles away. When the boy returned, he was thoughtful for a long time, and finally remarked that he never supposed the world was so large.