64 ANCIENT MODES OF BURIAL. they were ornamented with a circle of stones; but this was only for their generals and great men.' That these modes of burial existed in all countries with which we are acquainted at a very early period, is evident both from historical and poetical record. STRUTT, in his account of the Manners and the Customs of the Ancient Saxons, tells us in a note, vol. i. page 18, "that WODEN made a law that the bodies of the dead slain in battle should be burnt, together with their arms, ornaments, and money; and over the ashes of their kings and heroes, to raise large hills of earth; and on the sepulchres of those who had performed great and glorious actions to erect high monuments, inscribed with Runic characters." The custom of burning the dead and depositing their ashes in urns, probably originated in those correct and better feelings to which many of our ancient usages may be referred. Respect for the dead is a sentiment that seems to have been interwoven with our nature, although in times of semi-barbarism it may occasionally have been contemned or neglected. Achilles conquered Hector, and then dragged his dead body round the walls of Troy; an unmanly outrage, which may be traced to a ferocious practice, rather than to a want of decorous and honourable feeling. Burning the dead became therefore a pious duty, and the performance of this ceremony was sometimes necessary to preserve the body of a fallen hero from being ill-treated and mangled by a cruel enemy. Hence, no doubt, arose this ancient custom; and it was the peculiar privilege of the next of kin carefully to collect the bones and ashes of the deceased, and place them in an urn for sepulture. The spoils of war, the weapons of dead chieftains, and the bones of animals, have been frequently found in those barrows which have been opened in Derbyshire and other parts of the kingdom; and the poetic reader cannot fail to recognise the existence of a similar mode of interment in the days of Homer and Virgil. What a sublime tumulus Homer has thrown over the ashes of Achilles! and how interesting is the ceremony of consigning his remains to their last earthly home, as described by him in the twenty-fourth book of his Odyssey. "To flames we gave thee, the succeeding day, EARTHQUAKE IN THE MINES. "We then collect thy snowy bones, and place, "Where all, from age to age, who pass the coast, May point Achilles' tomb, and hail the mighty ghost." 6.5 Virgil, in the eleventh book of his Æneis, has given a very minute and interesting description of the funeral of Pallas, and it closes with a few lines that beautifully refer to the last sad office which the living had then to perform for the dead, "The conquer'd Latians, with like pious care, * * "Now had the morning thrice renew'd the light, They rake the yet warm ashes from below; "These and the bones unburnt in earth bestow: It has been noticed as a curious and interesting fact, that the great earthquake which, on Saturday, the first day of November, 1755, destroyed nearly the whole of the city of Lisbon, was very sensibly felt in many parts of Derbyshire, and particularly in the lead mines near Eyam. The narrative of Francis Mason, an intelligent overseer of the mines on Eyam Edge, has already appeared in print, and I have not hesitated to compress it into a smaller compass, yet in so doing I have faithfully preserved the leading features of his detail. About eleven o'clock in the forenoon of the first of November, 1755, as Francis Mason was sitting in a small room at the distance of from forty to fifty yards from the mouth of one of the engine shafts, he felt the shock of an earthquake, so violent that it raised him up in his chair, and shook some pieces of lime and plaster from the sides and roof of his little hovel. In a field about three hundred yards from the mine he afterwards observed a chasm, or cleft, in the earth, which he supposed was made at the same time: its direction was parallel to the vein of ore the miners were then pursuing, and its continuation from one extremity to the other was nearly one hundred and 66. EARTHQUAKE IN THE MINES. fifty yards. Two miners, who were employed in the drifts about sixty fathoms deep when the earthquake took place, were so terrified at the shock, that they dared not attempt to climb the shaft, which they dreaded might run in upon them, and entomb them alive. They felt themselves surrounded with danger, and as they were conversing with each other on the means of safety, and looking for a place of refuge, they were alarmed by a second shock, much more violent than the one preceding. They now ran precipitately to the interior of the mine: it was an instinctive movement that no way bettered their condition; it only changed the spot of earth where they had previously stood; but their danger and their fears were still the same. Another shock ensued, and after an awful and almost breathless interval of four or five minutes, a fourth and afterwards a fifth succeeded. Every repercussion was followed by a loud rumbling noise, which continued for about a minute; then, gradually decreasing in force, like the thunder retiring into distance, it subsided into an appalling stillness more full of terror than the sounds which had passed away, leaving the mind unoccupied by other impressions, to contemplate the mysterious nature of its danger. The whole space of time included between the first and the last shock was nearly twenty minutes. When the men had recovered a little from their trepidation, they began to examine the passages, and to endeavour to extricate themselves from their confinement. they passed along the drifts, they observed that pieces of minerals were scattered along the floor, which had been shaken from the sides and the roof, but all the shafts remained entire and uninjured. As SECTION VII. Mineral District. - Haycliff Mine. - Slickensides. - Accident in a Mine near Hucklow.. Wardlow Mears. Wheston Cross. Tideswell Top.— Marble Rocks in Tideswell Dale ;—Singular Stratum there. Cotton Factories. Tideswell. The Church.-Bishop Pursglove. Sampson Meurrills. - Tideswell Church-Yard. - Conclusion, WE had now bidden adieu to the wild and naked rocks of Middleton Dale, and to the fertile and romantic valley of the Derwent, and had entered on a track of flat country terminating on every side-with gradual eminences of a greater or lesser elevation. Nothing can be more uninteresting, in a picturesque point of view, than the road from Eyam to Tideswell. Scarcely one pleasant object occurs in the tedious course of the intervening four miles, to relieve the uniform dreariness of the prospect. In such a scene the mind loses its tone, and sinks into heedlessness or apathy. Such, indeed, was the feeling I experienced in passing along this important mineral district; for, as Dr. Fuller quaintly expresses it, when speaking of the Peak of Derbyshire, "though poor above, 'tis rich beneath the ground;" and the refuse dug from the openings into the mines every where encroaches upon the scanty verdure of the fields, where "it lies like marl upon a barren soil, encumbering what it cannot fertilize." The business of mining, once a source of considerable profit, appears to be rapidly declining in this part of Derbyshire. The workmen are gradually withdrawing from an employment, the unpleasantness and the danger of which are but indifferently compensated by the scanty wages they receive; and the capital that once invigorated the industry of the miner is diverted into other channels. The mineral tithe of the Eyam estate alone has produced from eight to nine hundred pounds a year: it is now not worth more than as many shillings. . 68 MINERAL CALLED SLICKENSIDES. Haycliff mine, now no longer worked, was once the grand depository of that extraordinary phenomenon in the mineral world, provincially called SLICKENSIDES. The external appearance of this curious species of Galena is well known wherever mineralogy has been studied. At the present time good specimens of it are extremely rare, and can only be met with in cabinets that have been long established. In those mines where it has most prevailed, it exhibits but little variety either in form or character. An upright pillar of limestonerock, intermixed with calcareous spar, contains this exploding ore : the surface is thinly coated over with lead, which resembles a covering of plumbago, and it is extremely smooth, bright, and even. These rocky pillars have their polished faces opposed to each other: sometimes they nearly touch, sometimes they are farther apart, the intervening space being filled up with smaller portions and fragments of spar and par ticles of lead ore; and a number of narrow veins of a whitish colour, and a powdery consistency, intersect and run in oblique directions amongst the mass. The effects of this extraordinary mineral are not less singular than terrific. A blow with a hammer, a stroke or a scratch with a miner's pick, are sufficient to rend those rocks asunder with which it is united or embodied. The stroke is immediately succeeded by a crackling noise, accompanied with a sound not unlike the mingled hum of a swarm of bees: shortly afterwards, an explosion follows, so loud and appalling, that even the miners, though a hardy race of men, and little accustomed to fear, turn pale and tremble at the shock. This dangerous combination of matter must, consequently, be approached with caution. To avoid the use of the common implements of mining, a small hole is carefully bored, into which a little gunpowder is put, and exploded with a match; the workmen then withdraw to a place of safety, to wait the result of their operations. Sometimes not less than five or six successive explosions ensue at intervals of from two to ten or fifteen minutes, and occasionally they are so sublimely awful, that the earth has been violently shaken to the surface by the concussion, even when the discharge has taken place at the depth of more than one hundred fathoms. When the Haycliff mine was open, a person of the name of Higginbottom, who was unused to the working of Slickensides, and not much apprehensive of danger, was repeatedly cautioned not to use his pick in the getting of the ore. Unfortunately |