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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 39, January, 1861 by Various
page 85 of 295 (28%)
edges of some of these gloomy pits we cannot pick our way; therefore a
plank is thrown across, and, trusting to so slender a bridge, we pass,
one by one. A single false step were enough to dash one to atoms,--so
to be transformed to a bruised and mangled mass, to perform one's own
sepulture, and lie in a grander grave than will ever be hollowed by
mortal hands to hide our useless bodies.

The deeper one penetrates into these mines, the wilder, more dangerous
the paths. It is as though the upper regions were kept in "company"
order, but lower down we meet with the every-day roughnesses of
veritable miners'-life; we follow their hazardous, but familiar steps;
we behold all the hardships these toiling, burrowing workers undergo,
that the hidden coffers of Earth may yield their tribute of treasure to
Man, its self-appointed, arrogant master.

Occasionally we meet a passing miner. Grasping his ponderous tools, he
flits by like a phantom; even in the momentary glance, we can perceive
how livid his sunless labor has left him; he is blanched as a ghoul,
and moves as noiselessly, with feather-light step. Each with a motion
salutes the Captain; but they do not heed the little group of strangers
who have braved so many dangers to behold the wonders which to them
are as commonplace as the forge to a blacksmith, or to a carpenter his
work-bench.

Still farther below us we hear the clink and clatter of real work. Down
we plunge,--another ladder, "long drawn out." Some of its rounds are
wanting; others are loose and worn to a mere splinter. Warned by the
voice below me, I proceed with a trembling caution, tenfold more
exciting to the strained nerves than the wildest bound on a mettled
racer, the fiercest rush that ever tingled through every fibre of the
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