Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/193

Rh earth around and under them, one cannot contemplate their operations and productions without admiration. Indeed they constitute one of the chief lions of The Black Country. I said, under them; which is literally true, for the whole village of buildings comprising the establishment has sunk full eleven feet below their first level. Once their foundations stood higher than the canal that runs by their side. The top of the canal is now nearly as high as their eaves, as it has been watched by rangers who have kept up its first level, while the furnace and forge-buildings with all their chimneys have sunk from being undermined. In returning to the railway station we saw a score of houses sunk up to their knees, and we looked down from the street upon floors once above its level, but now four or five feet below it. This is a characteristic feature of The Black Country. Everywhere you have the signs and presentiment of treacherous foundation. You see buildings that have subsided from their first levels at different angles of deflection, one end often sinking lower than the other, and making a rent in the outer walls. Some go down pretty evenly, like the Brades Works. Right under those terrible furnaces the moles are at work night and day rooting out walks through deep coal-seams. Under the foundations of tall-steepled churches all a-light with the evening lamps and resounding with the