at times to misunderstand your position.

Let us suppose that a mine has been already opened; that a "lode"--that
is, a vein of quartz with metal in it--has been discovered cropping out
of the earth, and that it has been dug down upon from above, and dug in
upon from the sea-cliffs. A shaft has been sunk--in other words, a hole
excavated--let us say, two or three hundred yards inland, to a depth of
some forty or fifty fathoms,--near the sea-level. This shaft is perhaps
nine feet by six wide. The lode, being a layer of quartz, sometimes
slopes one way, sometimes another, and is occasionally perpendicular.
It also varies in its run or direction a little here and there, like a
wildish horse, being sometimes met by other lodes, which, like bad
companions, divert it from the straight course. Unlike bad companions,
however, they increase its value at the point of meeting by thickening
it. Whatever course the lode takes, the miner conscientiously follows
suit. His shaft slopes much, little, or not at all, according to the
"lie of the lode."

It is an ancient truism that water must find its level. Owing to this
law, much water accumulates in the shaft, obliging the miner to erect an
engine-house and provide a powerful pumping-engine with all its gear, at
immense cost, to keep the works dry as he proceeds. He then goes to the
shore, and there, in the face of the perpendicular cliff, a little above
the sea-level, he cuts a horizontal tunnel about six feet high by three
broad, and continues to chisel and blast away the solid rock until he
"drives" his tunnel a quarter of a mile inland, which he will do at a
rate varying from two to six feet per week, according to the hardness of
the rock, until he reaches the shaft and thus provides an easy and
inexpensive passage for the water without pumping. This tunnel or level
he calls the "Adit level." But his pumping-engine is by no means
rendered useless, for it has much to do in hauling ore to the surface,
etcetera. In process of time, the miner works away all the lode down to
the sea-level, and must sink the shaft deeper--perhaps ten or twenty
fathoms--where new levels are driven horizontally "on the lode," and
water accumulates which must be pumped up to the Adit level, whence it
escapes to the sea.

Thus down, down, he goes, sinking his shaft and driving his levels on--
that is, always following the lode _ad infinitum_. Of course he must
stop before reaching the other sid