From the wide opening
of the largest mine it is possible to see what passes below; and a
strange and wonderful sight it is to peer down into the abyss, four
hundred and eighty feet deep, and observe the colossal entrances to the
various pits, the rocky bridges, the projections, arches, and caverns
excavated in the solid rock. The miners appear so many puppets; their
movements can hardly be distinguished, until the eye has grown accustomed
to the darkness and to their diminutive size.
At the given moment a match was applied to four trains of gunpowder. The
man who lighted them immediately sprang back, and hid himself behind a
wall of rock. In a minute or two came the flash; a few stones were
hurled into the air; and immediately afterwards was heard a loud
detonation, and the shattered mass fell in fragments all around. Echo
caught up the tremendous explosion, and carried it to the furthest
recesses of the mine; while, to enhance the terror of the scene, one rock
was hardly shivered before another crash was heard, and then a third, and
immediately afterwards a fourth.
[Iron-mine of Danemora: page179.jpg]
The other pits are still deeper, one of them being six hundred feet
beneath the ground; but as they are smaller in their openings, and as the
shafts are not always perpendicular, the gaze is soon lost in the
obscurity, which produces a dismal effect upon the spectator.
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