In many mining regions there is a class of pits that have been abandoned in consequence of the coal beneath being worked out. Sometimes these pits are made use of for purposes of ventilation. Proper care is not always taken of these abandoned holes, and they form dangerous precipices, through which a careless person may easily fall and be killed. Strangers strolling in the vicinity of mines occasionally step into these shafts and disappear, to be seen no more alive. IV. ACCIDENTS IN SHAFTS. ADVENTURE OF THE AUTHOR DESCENDING A SHAFT.—A MINUTE OF PERIL.—LIFTED THROUGH A SHAFT BY ONE LEG.—A COLLISION IN MID-AIR.—SENSATIONS OF THE DESCENT.—A MINER’S VIEWS OF DANGER.—PICTURESQUE SCENE AT A DESCENT.—OFFERING PRAYERS.—SCENE AT A RUSSIAN MINE.—SAFETY CAGES.—THEIR CONSTRUCTION.—A LUDICROUS INCIDENT.—HOW A MAN FAILED TO KEEP AN ENGAGEMENT.—DOWN IN THE SALT MINES OF POLAND.—A PERILOUS DESCENT.—“PLENTY MORE MEN.”—ACCIDENT NEAR SCRANTON.—“PUTTERS.”—HOW GIRLS WERE USED IN SCOTLAND.—MAN ENGINES.—THE LEVELS.—AN ACCIDENT CAUSED BY RATS.—THRILLING AND FATAL ADVENTURE OF TWO PENNSYLVANIA MINERS.—A FEARFUL FALL OF ROOF.—CARRYING A DYING COMRADE TOWARD THE LIGHT OF DAY.—EIGHT HOURS OF MORTAL AGONY. My first journey down the shaft of a mine had of course a novelty about it, and also partook of the sensational. It was not a coal mine into which I descended, but a copper mine. We stepped into a basket suspended by a hempen rope, and our conductor gave the signal to start. The engineer slacked away the rope somehow, and we descended rapidly. It seemed to me very much like falling out of a balloon. I never have fallen out of a balloon, and therefore cannot say positively whether the sensation was like it or not. I have been up in a balloon, and the sensation of going rapidly upward through the air is very much like that of going rapidly downward into the earth. Down, down, down we went; and though the time was short, it seemed to me pretty long. I had heard that there was generally at the bottom of the shaft of a mine a pool of water, which is called, in technical language, a “sump.” I had a suspicion that we might be plunged into it, and asked our conductor if there was any danger. “O, no danger at all!” he replied. “All that can happen to you is, that if you get into the sump you will get drenched; and then, if you do not like it, you can be drawn to the surface so rapidly, that every thread on you will be dried out again.” This proposed process of wetting and drying did not please me, and I intimated an emphatic hope that the engineer knew his business, and would stop at the proper time.