MINING UNDER THE OCEAN.
Mines under the earth are, indeed, interesting places to visit, but mines under the sea are more wonderful still. In England the latter are quite common, and great mineral riches have been extracted from rocks beneath the rolling ocean.
The St. Just Cornish mining district, on the borders of the Atlantic, has been long celebrated for the peculiar position of its mines, which extend thousands of feet under the bottom of the sea. The Botallack Mine extends some three thousand feet below the level of the ocean, and in what is called the Crowns the excavations have been carried upward of half a mile out under the water, which distance has been gradually increasing, in consequence of the ore dipping rapidly away seaward. The rocks under the sea have been worked away so close in some places that only a few feet of rock remain to keep out the waters of the Atlantic. Even in the finest weather the rolling of the pebbles with the swell of the ocean can be heard with greater distinctness than on the beach itself, and during great storms the noise is so appalling that, although certain that there is no real danger, the workmen are often anxious.
A writer who was once underground in the same mine during a storm says: "At the extremity of the mine-workings little could be heard of its effects except at intervals, when the reflux of some unusually large wave projected a pebble outward, bounding and rolling over the rocky bottom; but when standing beneath the base of the cliff, and in that part of the mine where but nine feet of rock stood between us and the ocean, the heavy roll of the large bowlders, the ceaseless grinding of the pebbles, the fierce thundering of the billows, with the crackling and boiling as they rebounded, placed a tempest in its most appalling form too vividly before me to be ever forgotten. More than once, doubting the protection of our rocky shield, we retreated in affright, and it was only after repeated trials that we had confidence to pursue our investigations."
CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES.
"What! all that for Grandpa?"
"No, Darling; it's for you."
"Oh, what a Little Bit!"