ted the observatory, for I had looked in the visitors' book,
where every person was required to sign his name. He replied, "Yes, if
a private company owned it, it would make the stockholders wealthy, for
it has become to the globe-trotters what Mecca is to the Mohammedans
for no tourist would dare to return home without registering at the
observatory and we encourage them by publishing their names in the
National Gazette.

"If you would like to accompany me I think I can show you another work
we are engaged in that is adding to the accumulated knowledge of the
ages." I gladly assented and after ten days of railway travel we
arrived at the great platinum mine of Eurasia. It was on the
continental divide between Europe and Asia and had been worked on a
small scale at the surface for a great many years, but had not produced
much platinum and owing to an increasing demand for it in the arts the
value of it greatly exceeded that of gold, while at the present time it
is on a par with silver, owing to the government selling it in the
market of the world for what it will bring and smashing any gambling
ring that would attempt to corner the market. We entered a cage and
were lowered to the one thousand-foot level; then we got out of the
cage and, walking about twenty yards, we entered a chamber where there
was another shaft and hoisting works and were lowered to the
two-thousand foot level, which opened out in every direction,
connecting with a drainage tunnel eight miles long, which carried off
all the water for sixteen square miles of surface. After explaining to
me the old methods of mining he said with a smile: "Come with me now
and I will show you our new method," and entering a large chamber that
looked like an immense warehouse, we stepped into a cage and went down,
changing from one cage to another every thousand feet, until we stopped
at the sixty-four-thousand-foot level. We visited several crosscuts and
drifts on this level and found several hundred men at work taking out
platinum ore of a high grade, and my companion told me that they were
doing the same work on several other thousand-foot levels, the ore
improving in quality as they went down. "You no doubt observed as we
came down that the shaft was circular, but you may not have seen a
second shaft of the same diameter as the hoisting shaft forty feet
away. The second shaft is used for air pipes, water pipes and insulated
electric wires."

All the electric curre