with steps where it came upon a natural gulf, it led them deep into the
hill before they arrived at the place where they were at present digging
out the precious ore. This was of various kinds, for the mountain was
very rich with the better sorts of metals. With flint and steel, and
tinder box, they lighted their lamps, then fixed them on their heads,
and were soon hard at work with their pickaxes and shovels and
hammers.
Father and son were at work near each other, but not in the same
_gang_--the passages out of which the ore was dug, they called
_gangs_--for when the _lode_, or vein of ore, was small, one miner
would
have to dig away alone in a passage no bigger than gave him just room
to
work--sometimes in uncomfortable cramped positions. If they stopped
for
a moment they could hear everywhere around them, some nearer,
some
farther off, the sounds of their companions burrowing away in all
directions in the inside of the great mountain--some boring holes in
the
rock in order to blow it up with gunpowder, others shoveling the
broken
ore into baskets to be carried to the mouth of the mine, others hitting
away with their pickaxes. Sometimes, if the miner was in a very lonely
Madhuri Noah
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