playing with facility, or the water was too
muddy to be received up the pipes; they were therefore abandoned. In
the meantime, the attempts made to reach the miners by sounding or by
the inclined well, seemed to present insurmountable difficulties. The
distance to them was unknown; the sound of their blows on the roof, far
from offering a certain criterion, or, at least, a probable one, seemed
each time to excite fresh doubts; in short, the rock which it was
necessary to pierce, was equally hard and thick, and the gunpowder
unceasingly used to perforate it, made but a hopeless progress. The
consequent anxiety that reigned in the mine may be easily conceived.
Each of the party, in his turn, offered his suggestions, sometimes of
hope, sometimes of apprehension; and the whole felt oppressed by that
vague suspense, which is, perhaps, more painful to support than the
direst certainty. The strokes of the unfortunate miners continued to
reply to theirs, which added to their agitation, from the fear of not
being able to afford them effectual help. They almost thought that in
such a painful moment their situation was more distressing than those
they sought to save, as the latter were, at any rate, sustained by hope.

While most of the party were thus perplexed by a crowd of disquieting
ideas, produced by the distressing nature of the event itself, and by
their protracted stay in a mine where the few solitary lamps scarcely
rendered "darkness visible," the workmen continued their labors with
redoubled ardor; some of them were hewing to pieces blocks of the rock,
which fell slowly and with much difficulty; others were actively
employed in boring the hole before named, while some of the engineers'
apprentices sought to discover new galleries, either by creeping on "all
fours," or by penetrating through perilous and narrow crevices and
clefts of the rock.

In the midst of their corporeal and mental labors, their attention was
suddenly excited from another painful source. The wives of the hapless
miners had heard that all hope was not extinct. They hastened to the
spot; with heart-rending cries and through tears alternately of despair
and hope, they exclaimed, "Are they _all_ there?" "Where is the father
of my children? Is _he_ among them, or has he been swallowed up by
the waters?"

At the bottom of the mine, close to the water-reservoir, a consultation
was held on the plan to be pursued. Engineers, pupils, workmen, all
agreed t