sixty-four-thousand-foot level was only one hundred and twenty degrees
Fahrenheit, and any increase of temperature in the workings was owing to
the electric light generating heat in the dense atmosphere of the lower
levels. My companion invited me to weigh myself on the ore scales and to
my astonishment I only weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, and I
exclaimed that something was wrong with the scales, but my companion
offered to take the scales up with us to the surface and test them. We
did so and on weighing myself again the beam tipped at one
hundred and sixty pounds my regular weight.

Then he informed me that there was a progressive fall in weights on
every level as they went down and that if no unforeseen obstacle
interfered they would reach the limit of attraction from the surface
downward and in his opinion it would be at fifty miles. I asked him what
they would find there and he replied that in his opinion it would be the
same subtle and elastic essence that fills stellar space, but he added:
"God alone knows the secret of the universe in his keeping." We visited
the great smelting, refining and assaying works in the vicinity and he
introduced me to the general superintendent of all the mines on the
continental divide, who invited me to accompany him on a mine inspection
tour and he would show me the improved method they used in prospecting
for ore and extracting and milling it to the best advantage. "When our
mining experts discover a mineral belt containing precious metals or
copper, iron, lead, nickel, platinum, cobalt, quicksilver, manganese or
any other ore used in manufactures and the arts, the first thing we do
is to sink a shaft on the most likely ore chimney and at every one
hundred feet in depth we run levels to develop it and if we continue to
find ore as we go down and the ground requires drainage, we survey for a
drainage tunnel that will drain the mine at the greatest depth, even if
we have to run a tunnel ten miles. We sink the shaft to within twenty