Coming to Echo City, a little mining-town in the canon, we branched off up Weber Canon, then up Silver Creek Canon toward Park City, where the Ontario Mine, the largest and richest silver-mine in Utah, is situated. When we were yet twelve miles off, the stream that comes down from the mines through the canon was so impregnated with rubbish from the mines and quartz-mill, as to be unfit for use and to have a silver cast. Hence the name, “Silver Creek.” Winding up the steep, rough canon, we at length came to Park City,--which is but a few little log and board shanties stuck among the rocks against the mountain,--and learned that it was just a half mile up to the main mine. The way was up a gorge that was so steep and rough as to be almost inaccessible; and when we arrived we were tired and our team was well jaded. We did not like to leave them below. Here stood a large frame building; and in this the shaft was sunk. The shaft is about six feet square, and there was a large engine to work the windlass to let the miners up and down to and from work, and also to haul up the quartz. We found the superintendent to be a very clever gentleman; and he promised us that if we would wait till noon, when the miners had gone to dinner, he would let us down the shaft. This we gladly assented to, and we were accordingly let down into the bowels of the earth, five hundred feet. Here we found several chambers branching out, each high as a man’s head, and ten or twelve feet square. Four large engines were standing here for the purpose of pumping out the water should a vein be struck. Engineers stand ready at their posts; for they say water often bursts in the mine in such quantities as to cut off the escape of the miners should there be no pumps. This, then, is what is called flooding the mines. The metal is in hard rocks, called quartz; and these rocks run in veins through the earth, usually two or three feet square. Sometimes the veins run near the surface, and at other times, as in this case, far below. Old experienced miners can generally tell when there is metal below. The ceiling is very heavily timbered up, and torches were hung all around. The miners have torches fixed on their caps. The leads in this step had run out, but there was another shaft running down still a hundred feet deeper, where the miners were working; but we were not permitted to go there. After the foreman had shown us all around, he gave each of us a piece of quartz as big as a fist, and we all stepped upon the elevator to go up. The light at the top of the shaft looked like a star. All ready, and the foreman pulled a rope which rang a bell up by the engineer, and away we shot up the dark shaft, and soon stood in daylight. There is a saw-mill here, and the engines are fired with wood. There are several other shafts in the surrounding hills; but this is the main one. Four bars of silver, worth two millions of dollars, were sent to the mint at one time from this place.