Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/134

 did I ever, during my visits, find them resting from their labours.

The descent and ascent into and from mines, are through the shafts, by means of perpendicular ladders, and constitute a very important feature of the labours of this class of men. The labour of ascent is, to a stranger, very severe, producing, in a very short time, great breathlessness, palpitation, and exhaustion. It is accomplished by grasping the steps above you, with an alternate change of the hands, and, as it were, drawing up the lower parts of the body: it is going on all fours up a perpendicular plane. Habit makes the labour comparatively easy to the miner, and the younger ones often make trial of their respective activity in coming to grass. Several miners have accused this practice as the primary cause of their asthmatic sufferings in after life. When the mine is of any considerable depth, it hardly ever happens that the train of ladders is in one continuous chain from top to bottom; on the contrary, after ascending two or three, it is, commonly, necessary to traverse a greater or less extent of a horizontal gallery, in order to reach the next series of ladders. This gives time for breathing, although it adds to the length of the journey; for as almost all galleries are horizontal, every foot of positive ascent must be by ladders, which are almost always perpendicular. In very deep mines, this makes the labour of ascent a very serious matter, when taken daily for years. Unfortunately for the miner, most of the richest and populous mines are the deepest, and most worked in their lowest regions. When I visited Dolcoath copper mine in 1819, the lowest gallery was 1386