Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/119

 extensive and important operations. What adds greatly to the impression of tameness, is the extreme darkness and dirtiness of the galleries. There is no light whatever but that afforded by the candles of the workmen, and by those carried by yourself and guide: while the universal presence of water soaking through the crevices of the galleries and intermixing with the dust and rubbish, keeps up a constant succession of dirty puddles; through these the visitor must pass, besides being frequently obliged to crawl on all fours through passages too low to admit him in any other manner. The galleries are extended by breaking down the looser parts by the pickaxe, and by rending the more solid by gunpowder. Each miner has a candle, which is stuck close by him, against the wall of his gallery, by means of a piece of clay; and besides the men employed in extending the gallery, there are generally one or two boys employed in wheeling the broken ore, &c. to the shaft. Each of these boys has also a candle fixed to his wheelbarrow, by the universal subterranean candlestick, a piece of clay. A certain band of men (called, however numerous, a pair) generally undertake a certain portion of work in the galleries. These subdivide themselves into smaller bodies, and, by relieving each other at the end of every six or eight hours, keep up the work uninterruptedly, except on Sunday. By means of this subdivision of the pairs, there is, in general, not more than one-third of the underground labourers below at any one time. Notwithstanding this incessant labour, the progress of the miner in excavating his gallery is, in general, very small: one, two, or three feet in a