the wonderful copper-mines. We chanced to be there just at the hour to see
one of the unique sights of America,--the working of the man-engine that
brings the miners up from their work. Even by machinery it takes them half
an hour to reach daylight. The mine is worked to the depth of fifteen
hundred feet, and for five hundred we could gaze down into the dark and
awful shaft, lit for us by the candles burning in the miners' caps. Two
long beams, to which are attached at right angles little platforms at
intervals of eight feet, each platform holding one man, work up and down.
As each man reaches the level of the platform above on the opposite beam
the engine stops just long enough for him to step from one to the other.
The long, silent, spectral procession, moving with such shadowy precision
and constant motion, with the glimmering lights changing, not fitfully,
but with the regularity of well-trained will-o'-the-wisps, made a panorama
not easily forgotten. Every minute or two, as the engine paused, the miner
whose platform had reached the top sprang suddenly, like a jack-in-the-box,
out of the opening into which we were gazing, touched his hat, and
disappeared into the town. Long as we waited, the procession was not yet
ended when we had to go back to the Japan.

It is just beyond Hancock that the river broadens into the beautiful
expanse so like Lake George. As we glided away from the wharf in the light
of a splendid sunset, it was curious to look back at the simple little
town, so remote from luxury, even from civilization, so humble in its own
wants and pleasures, yet pouring such vast sources of supply into the
great world of which it knew nothing and asked nothing, save the privilege
of enriching it.

At twilight we entered the canal. I have been up the Saguenay, I have been
over the Marshall Pass and through the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas, and I
have seen many noble scenes in Europe, but no scenery has ever impressed