department and the north wall of the prison.

Passing from one of these departments to the other, through a large
gateway, the gate being kept by a convict, an old man who murdered his
son, and who has a life sentence. Reader, how would you like to spend
your entire life, day after day, week after week, month after month,
year after year, in the monotonous employment of opening and closing a
large gate? When my escort and myself reached the mines, I was placed
in charge of Mr. Dodds, the official in control of the mines at the
surface. Mr. Dodds is a very competent officer, and has been on duty
at that place more than twenty years. From this officer I received a
mining cap. This piece of head-wear was turban-shaped, striped, of
course, with a leather frontlet, on which was fastened the mining
lamp. This lamp, in shape, resembled an ordinary tea-pot, only it was
much smaller. In place of the handle was a hook, which fastened to the
leather frontlet. The bowl of the lamp contained the oil; a wick
passes up through the spout, at the end of which is the light. The
miner carrying his lamp in this position has it out of his way. With
the cap on my head and lamp lighted, I stood on the verge of a ten by
twelve hole in the earth, that was almost eight hundred feet deep. We
think that a well one hundred feet deep is quite a distance down into
the ground, but here was a hole eight times deeper. In the mining
vernacular this hole is termed a shaft--the term that will be employed
in speaking of it hereafter. There are two of these shafts, about one
hundred yards apart. Each shaft is divided by a wooden partition which
descends from the top to the bottom. Two elevators, or cages, as they
are called, ascend and descend along the shaft. While one cage is
coming up the other is going down. They derive their motor power from
two large engines, one for each shaft. The officer in charge inquired,
before making my descent into the mines, if I ever fainted. "Never,"