To describe underground life in its many phases is the object of this volume. The experience of the miner is full of adventures of an exciting character; so exciting, indeed, that there is no occasion to use fiction in place of fact. The hardships, the difficulties, and the dangers that surround him who labors beneath the earth’s surface might form the basis of a story more interesting than the most skilfully constructed romance ever printed. It is an old adage, that Truth is stranger than Fiction: the experience of the miner affords better illustrations of the correctness of this adage than does that of any other laborer. Especially is this the case if we consider Underground Life in its metaphoric as well as in its literal sense, and note the devious and hidden ways in which many of our fellow-men pass the greater part of their existence. [Illustration: AUSTIN, NEVADA, SIX THOUSAND FEET ABOVE THE SEA. THE METROPOLIS OF THE REESE RIVER DISTRICT. SILVER FIRST DISCOVERED AT THIS POINT IN JULY, 1862.] II. DISCOVERY OF COAL. SAVAGE THEORIES ABOUT COAL.—EXPERIENCE OF A SIBERIAN EXPLORING PARTY.—BURNING BLACK STONES.—MINERAL FUEL AMONG THE ANCIENTS.—THEIR MOTIVE POWER.—CHINESE TRADITIONS.—CHINESE GAS WELLS.—HISTORY OF COAL IN ENGLAND.—A ROYAL EDICT.—CURIOUS STORY OF THE MINER OF PLENEVAUX.—EXTENT OF COAL FIELDS THROUGHOUT THE GLOBE.—THE QUAKER AND THE YANKEE PEDLER.—THE FIRST ANTHRACITE.—BELLINGHAM BAY AND THE CHINOOKS.—HOW COAL WAS FORMED.—INTERVIEWING A REPTILE.—THEORIES OF THE ANCIENTS.—RIVERS OF OIL OF VITRIOL.—ANCIENT AND MODERN FIRE WORSHIPPERS. In the autumn of 1865, a small party connected with the survey of a telegraph route through North-eastern Asia, was landed at the mouth of the Anadyr River, near Behring’s Straits. Another party was landed in Kamchatka, and proceeded over land towards the north. They made constant inquiries about the Anadyr party, and at last learned from a band of wandering aboriginals that some white men had been left by a fire ship (steamer) near the mouth of the river, and were living in a small house which they had constructed partly of boards, partly of bushes, and partly of earth. The savages described them as the most wonderful white men they had ever seen. “They have,” said one of the savages, “an iron box, and they burn black stones in it to make a fire.” These savages had never seen a stove, and they had never seen coal. To their untutored minds the work of the white men was something wonderful.