History of Northampton, Lehigh, Monroe, Carbon, and Schuylkill ...

290 HISrOHY OF SCHUTLKILL COUNTY.
ot" water broiitAlii up by tlic engine, at eacli lii. ci' .i.,;
pump, is (anal in .veight to about eight ton..-! and i
half.
'At iliiniepili of 200 feet of this slope, a tumuli has
been driven ninety yards soiitii to the Tutuiel vtiti. and
70 yards novtti tu the Lawton vein—both iniough
solid roclc 5 which (Miables the proprietors to work lliree :
veinSjWidi thii present engines and fixtures. /",s the
visitor k'iivcs ihe r-lope, and finds hiniself, lantern in
lu'ud, groping Ins way through the gangway mlo tire
ho.arl of tiie niiiiojie is half bewildered and f-uutled,
as the almost iudir^tinct masses of coal, slate, dirt, &c,.
fashion themselves into something Ijordering npon a
dark, (hisky^ and e/en forbidding outline, it seems
as if you h;id fallen upon a subterranean city, lutried
by some great convulsion of nature ; and the illusion
is still furthtr heightened by observing workmen
busily engaged, aj'i)arently in excavating the rains.
Or, if you arc Inghly imaginativt?, and have read the
Odyssey, you might readily fancy the feelii'gb of
Ulysses, ihal •gidl-like and much-onduring man,"
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when liu paiJ a \ isit to the infernal shades, fer tbo
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purposii of a s./ur laming (he shortest and mo$i direct, |
cut to his beloved Ithaca. Homer, ho\vevcr, does- I
apt inform us whether or not the shades carried lamps I
in their caps. wilh!u;t which the pick would le of lit-
tie use to our miners." 1
On several occasions. Pottsville sustained injury
from freshets—in October, 1831, and January, 1841. I
The following tVom the JVliner's Journal gives an account
of these I'reshets :
•'Since die recollection of our oldest inhabitants, fhis
portion gf die country has not been visited by so con-
siderable a freshet as wa.s witnessed in the early ].ian
of the weeii:. It is not less remarkable that the loss
of property sustained by this accumulation of waiers,
has proved, so far as is ascertained, entirely dispro-
norl)CQ(;d to thegenciral a[)prehension— -aiiotf.e..; prooi'
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