off by a partition, which extended the
whole distance from the top to the bottom of the mine. Through this the
materials used in the work were let down, and the ore drawn up in large
sacks, consisting each of the skin of an ox. The other half of the
shaft contained the two pumping timbers, and numerous floorings at
short distances; from one to another of these ran ladders, by which men
were continually ascending and descending, at the risk of falling only
a few feet at the utmost. The descent from platform to platform was an
easy one, while the little walk upon the platform relieved the muscles
exhausted by climbing down. With no great fatigue I got down a thousand
feet, where our farther progress was stopped by the water that filled
the lower galleries.

Galleries are passages running off horizontally from the shaft, either
cut through the solid porphyry to intersect some vein, or else the
space which a vein once occupied is fitted up for a gallery by
receiving a wooden floor and a brick arch over head. They are the
passages that lead to others, and to transverse galleries and veins,
which, in so old a mine as this, are very numerous. When a vein
sufficiently rich to warrant working is struck, it is followed through
all its meanderings as long as it pays for digging. The opening made in
following it is, of course, as irregular in form and shape as the vein
itself. The loose earth and rubbish taken out in following it is thrown
into some abandoned opening or gallery, so that nothing is lifted to
the surface but the ore. Sometimes several gangs of hands will be
working upon the same vein, a board and timber floor only separating
one set from another. When I have added to this description that this
business of digging out veins has continued here for near three hundred
years, it can well be conceived that this mountain ridge has become a
sort of honey-comb.

THE MINERS.

When our party had reached the limit of descent, we turned aside into a
gallery, and made our way among gangs of workmen, silently pursuing
their daily labor in galleries and chambers reeking with moisture,
while the water trickled down on every side on its way to the common
receptacle at the bottom. Here we saw English carpenters dressing
timbers for flooring by the light of tallow candles that burned in soft
mud candlesticks adhering to the rocky walls of the chamber. Men were
industriously digging upon the vein, others disposing of the rubbish,
w