The wonders of the world

by John Loraine Abbott

The pestilential vapors which environ him with increasing clouds, and the style of the entrance, remind him of Virgil’s description of the descent of Eneas to the infernal regions. Here are to be seen the same caverned portico, the rocky, rough descent, and the steaming sulphur, with all the deadly stenches of Avernus. The wretched inmates of this gloomy cavern, appear to him like so many specters, as poetic fiction has described them: and he is induced by the length of the way, joined to the excessive heat and its suffocating quality, to fancy that he will be made to pay dearly for his curiosity. In one part the steam is so excessively hot, as to scorch at the distance of twelve paces, at the same time that the sulphureous smell is intolerable. Near this spot a volcanic fire broke out some years ago, in consequence of which strong walls were constructed, as barriers to its power, and several contiguous passages, which, had it spread, would have proved dangerous to the mine, closed up.

The visitor has now to traverse many long and winding galleries, as well as large vaulted caverns, where the workmen are dispersed on all sides, employed in hewing vast masses of the rock, and preparing other parts for explosion. Others wheel the brazen ore toward the black abyss, where the suspended buckets hang ready to draw it upward. From the effect of such violent exercise, combined with the heat, they are obliged to work almost naked. Their groups, occupations, and primitive appearance, scantily lighted by the trembling rays of torches, form a curious and interesting scene.

The depth of the mine being at least twelve hundred feet, a full hour is required to reach to the bottom. The mass of copper lies in the form of an inverted cone. Five hundred men are employed daily; but females are not admitted, on account of the deleterious quality of the vapors. This mine was anciently a state prison, in which criminals, slaves and prisoners of war toiled out their wretched existence. Near the bottom is a rocky saloon, furnished with benches. It is called the Hall of the Senate, on account of its having been the resting-place of several Swedish kings, who came, attended by the senators, to examine the works, and here took refreshments. It was in this mine that the immortal Gustavus Vasa, disguised as a peasant, labored for his bread, during a long concealment, after having been robbed by his guide; and his first adherents in the struggle which placed him on the throne, were from the miners and peasants of Dalecarlia.

In the year 1751, a very rich copper mine was wrought in the county of Wicklow, Ireland. From this mine ran a stream of blue-colored water, of so deleterious a nature as to destroy all the fish in the river Arklow, into which it flowed. One of the workmen, having left an iron shovel in this stream, found it some days after incrusted with copper. This led one of the proprietors of the mine to institute a set of experiments, from which he concluded that the blue water contained an acid holding copper in solution; that iron had a stronger affinity for the acid than copper; and that the consequence of this affinity was the precipitation of the copper, and the solution of the iron, when pieces of that metal were thrown into the blue water. These ideas induced the miners to dig several pits for the reception of this water, and to put bars of iron into them. The result was, that they obtained an abundance of copper, much purer and more valuable than that which they had procured from the ore itself by smelting.

On the island of Anglesea, near Dulas bay, on the north coast, is Parys mountain, which contains the most considerable quantity of copper ore perhaps ever known. The external aspect of the hill is extremely rude, and it is surrounded by enormous rocks of coarse white quartz. The ore is lodged in a basin, or hollow, and has on one side a small lake, over the waves of which, as over those of Avernus, fatal to the feathered tribe, it is said that birds are never known to pass. The effect of the mineral operations has been, that the whole of this tract has assumed a wild and savage appearance. Suffocating fumes of the burning heaps of copper arise in all parts, and extend their baneful influence for miles around. That the ore was worked in a very remote period, appears by vestiges of the ancient operations, which were carried on by trenching, and by heating the rocks intensely, when water was suddenly poured on them, so as to cause them to crack or scale. In the year 1768, after a long search, which was so little profitable that it was on the eve of being abandoned, a large body of copper ore was found; and this has ever since been worked to great advantage, still promising a vast supply. The water lodged in the bottom of the bed of ore, being strongly impregnated with the metal, is drawn up and distributed in pits, where the same process is employed as in the Wicklow mine. The copper thus procured differs little from native copper, and is very highly prized.

In the Parys mine, eight tuns of gunpowder are annually expended in blasting the rock. Nature has here been profuse in bestowing her mineral favors; for, above the copper ore, and not more than two feet beneath the soil, is a bed of yellowish greasy clay, from three to twelve feet in thickness, containing lead ore, from a tun of which metal, upward of fifty ounces of silver are generally obtained.

COPPER MINE IN CORNWALL.

The copper mines of Cornwall, a view of one of which is given in the cut, are very numerous, and several of them large and very rich in ore. It is remarkable that in various parts of this country the earth has produced such an exuberance of this metal, as to afford it in large massy lumps of malleable copper, several pieces of which are shown in very curious vegetable forms. The particular ore named mundic, found in the tin mines, was for many ages considered of no other use but to nourish that metal while in the mine. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a laudable curiosity tempted several private individuals to examine into its nature; but the design miscarried, and the mundic was thrown, as useless, into the old pits in which the rubbish was collected. However, about a century ago, this purpose was effected by degrees; and the copper extracted from the ore now produces, on an average, upward of twelve thousand tuns, valued at between four and five millions of dollars, annually, equaling in goodness the best Swedish copper, while the ore itself yields a proportionate quantity of lapis calaminaris, for the making of brass.

At Ecton hill, near the river Dove, in Derbyshire, a valuable copper mine was discovered some years ago, and has since been worked to great advantage. In its position, situation and inclination, it differs from any mine yet discovered in Europe, Asia, Africa or America; the wonderful mass of copper ore not running in regular veins or courses, but sinking perpendicularly down, widening and swelling out at the bottom in the form of a bell. The works are four hundred and fifty feet beneath the river Dove, it being the deepest mine in Great Britain. On the opposite side of Ecton hill is a valuable lead mine, the veins of which approach very nearly to the copper mine.