A comparatively small portion of the human race lives, or would wish to live, beneath the surface of the globe. Most of us rarely go there voluntarily, and our first visits of any important duration are made after we have shuffled off this mortal coil and invoked the aid of the sexton. Then we are carried there without protest, and the earth is filled above us in sufficient depth to guard us against ordinary intrusions. We may be certain that none of our friends will come in living flesh to join us, and when death brings them to our side their slumbers will be as long and peaceful as our own. The earth, beneath its surface, is regarded by many, as the dwelling-place of Death, to be contemplated with a shudder, and to be visited only when life has left us.
But have they ever considered how much of life there is which the light of day does not reveal? The plants in our gardens have their roots in the rich soil prepared for their sustenance; remove those roots, and the plants fall and die. The trees of the forest spread their branches and unfold their leaves to sun and storm, but there are other branches spread below which sometimes extend more widely than those above. Through these lower limbs, hidden from the light of the sun and sheltered from the peltings of the pitiless storm, life comes to the trunk and to the upper branches. Lay bare these lower branches, and tear them from the earth, and the tree soon withers and perishes. The grass carpets the meadow, the flowers adorn the hill-sides, wheat and corn grow in the fields, the trees spread their shading limbs and drop their fruits in their season, and without these the world would be desolate. But all have their existence underground, and they cling as tenaciously to the bosom of Mother Earth as the men who walk among or upon them cling to that mysterious element which we call life.
WEALTH UNDERGROUND.
A great portion of the wealth of the globe lies beneath its surface. Gold and silver form the circulating medium of all civilized and many savage people. Their possession is wealth, as the lack of them is poverty; their coming brings happiness, and their departure leaves misery. From the earth they are taken, and in their pursuit men undergo many privations and suffer many hardships. The diamond that sparkles on delicate fingers has been washed from the accumulations which many centuries had piled above it. Iron, copper, tin, and other metals are sought by the light of the miner’s lamp, far away from the rays of the sun, and sometimes in long tunnels pushed beneath the ever-restless ocean. Ages and ages ago the hand of Nature deposited beds of coal in every quarter of the globe, and to-day they afford light and heat to millions of the human race. Down, down, hundreds and thousands of feet below the surface of the earth these coal-beds are spread, sometimes over areas many miles in extent, and promising a supply of fuel for many centuries to come. Thousands of men find profitable employment in these mines; and but for their labors, those of us who live above the surface would often suffer the pangs of cold.
VALUE OF COAL AND IRON.
As the coal burns brightly in our grates and fills our rooms with heat, do we think of the many centuries it has been awaiting our use, and of the toil that has placed it in our control? As we look at the great network of railways, spreading over our continent, bringing north and south, east and west, nearer together, annihilating time and space (and sometimes annihilating people), do we think that but for the mines of coal and iron our country to-day would be little better than it was half a century ago, and much of its area, now rich in commercial and agricultural prosperity, would be little else than a wilderness? To coal and iron the world owes much of its present advancement, and both these substances come from beneath the surface of the earth.
The most valuable minerals, and those which employ the greatest amount of capital, are of comparatively recent exploitation. Iron has done more good to the world than gold, and is many times more valuable; but gold was known and used long before iron was discovered. Coal is more valuable than copper, and gold, and diamonds; the world could go on without these last, as other minerals could take their places, but nothing now known could take the place of coal. From many parts of the globe the forest primeval has been removed, and countries that a few hundred years ago were thickly wooded are now almost denuded of timber. Should the working of coal mines cease to-day, there would speedily ensue a scarcity of fuel, and, if prolonged, this scarcity would result in much suffering and death. The exploitation of coal is one of the great interests of the British Isles, and is of no inconsiderable importance in the United States. More than two thirds of the mining enterprise of the world is devoted to it; yet this substance, possessing no beauty, and to a casual observer devoid of all merit, is included among the most recently discovered minerals. “Time’s noblest offspring is its last.”
FUNNY EXPERIENCE OF A NOVICE.
To most people the underground life of the miner is a mystery. Comparatively few of those who walk the earth to-day have ever been farther within it than to the bottom of a cellar; and in many localities even this experience has been denied to the inhabitants, for the reason that no cellars are found there. If an enumeration were made to-day of all persons in the United States who have ever been underground more than fifty feet from the surface, and more than one hour at a time, the number would be found surprisingly small. I once accompanied a gentleman from Boston in a descent into a mine a hundred feet in depth, and having a single gallery about eighty feet long, leading from the foot of the shaft. It was an old story to me, but a new one to my Boston friend, who clung to the rope of our bucket as convulsively as a drowning man would clutch a life buoy. When we reached the bottom, and crept along the low gallery, his heart beat violently, and he several times wished himself safe above ground. When we finished our exploration, and returned to the upper air, I asked him what he thought of the mine.