Inland navigation. ioi

* Now meeting streams in artful mazes glide t

* While each unmingled pours a separate tide;

* Now thro’ the hidden veins of earth they flow,

* And visit sulphurous mines and caves below ;

* The ductile streams obey the guiding hand,

' * And social plenty circles round the land.’

I (hall now add a short account of the internal structure and appear-ance of the duke’s coal mine; which may serve for a description ofother mines, whether of coal, iron, or any other kind.

You enter with lighted candles the subterraneous paslage in a boatmade for bringing out the coals, forty-feven feet long, four feet and ahalf broad, including the gunnels, and two feet six inches deep. Thisboat, when loaded, carries about seven tons, or sometimes eight. Inthis manner you proceed up the canal to the lake at the head of themine, distant three quarters of a mile: the two folding doors at themouth are immediately shut, on your entrance, to keep out too muchair if the wind blows; and you then proceed by the light of your can-dles, which cast a livid gloom, serving only to make darkness visible.

But this dismal gloom is rendered still more awful by the solemnecho of this subterraneous lake, which returns various and discordantsounds. At one moment you are struck with the grating noise ofengines, which, by a curious contrivance, let down the coals into theboats. At another, you hear the shock of an explosion, occasioned byblowing up the hard rock, which will not yield to any other force thanthat of gun-powder ; immediately after perhaps your ears. are saluted bythe songs of merriment from either sex, who thus beguile their laboursin the mine.

When you have reached the head of the works, a new scene opens toyour view. There you behold men and women, almost in their pri-mitive state of nature, toiling in different capacities, by the glimmering

of