essity of elevating my position by as
lofty a comparison as I can make--like a flying Mercury with a star on
his head; and finally deposited me safely upon my legs again, on the
firm rock pathway beyond. "You are but a light and a little man, my
son," says this excellent fellow, snuffing my candle for me before we go
on; "only let me lift you about as I like, and you shan't come to any
harm while I am with you!"

Speaking thus, the miner leads us forward again. After we have walked a
little farther in a crouching position, he calls a halt, makes a seat
for us by sticking a piece of old board between the rocky walls of the
gallery, and then proceeds to explain the exact subterranean position
which we actually occupy.

We are now four hundred yards out, _under the bottom of the sea_; and
twenty fathoms or a hundred and twenty feet below the sea level.
Coast-trade vessels are sailing over our heads. Two hundred and forty
feet beneath us men are at work, and there are galleries deeper yet,
even below that! The extraordinary position down the face of the cliff,
of the engines and other works on the surface, at Botallack, is now
explained. The mine is not excavated like other mines under the land,
but under the sea!

Having communicated these particulars, the miner next tells us to keep
strict silence and listen. We obey him, sitting speechless and
motionless. If the reader could only have beheld us now, dressed in our
copper-coloured garments, huddled close together in a mere cleft of
subterranean rock, with flame burning on our heads and darkness
enveloping our limbs--he must certainly have imagined, without any
violent stretch of fancy, that he was looking down upon a conclave of
gnomes.

After listening for a few moments, a distant, unearthly noise becomes
faintly audible--a long, low, mysterious moaning, which never changes,
which is _felt_ on the ear as well as _heard_ by it--a sound that might
proceed from some incalculable distance, from some far invisible
height--a sound so unlike anything that is heard on the upper ground, in
the free air of heaven; so sublimely mournful and still; so ghostly and
impressive when listened to in the subterranean recesses of the earth,
that we continue instinctively to hold our peace, as if enchanted by
it, and think not of communicating to each other the awe and
astonishment which it has inspired in us from the very first.

At last, the miner speaks again, and tells us that what