THERE is a wicked street, that is overtopped and crossly frowned upon by the steeple of Trinity.

Banks and railroad companies inhabit it, and various are its receptacles of floating capital. Digging has become incorporate therein; and bad men do unscrupulously go about to bury their loose talents in the earth, by way of a serious and paying investment. I am moved to apostrophize the iniquity.

What have I to do with thee, thou Wall street, stocked with ephemeral "fancies!"I and my friends look down upon thee, from the garret and dormer windows of a sublime independence. How little thou art! Thou art content to control the small destinies of a nation! Thy name is in the mouth of the political economist. Thou art nothing-the mere mainspring of the State-a piece of mechanisin! Away with thee! Thou hast body. Thou art earth-born, mortal. Thou feedest men. Thou pamperest them with bread. Thou buildest cities and ships, and sendest forth merchandise, and makest civilization vulgar and universal. Thy mean-spirited bankers support the charities of christendom with MONEY! I hate thee! Thou knowest naught of ethical mysteries and metaphysics. Thou art dusty. Thou never tastedst pure ether. Thou never dwelledst in lofts and celestial observatories.

It is true, thou hast backers. Practi-. cal men love to look upon thee, and in

thy ebb and flow, to watch the "tide of times." Philosophers justify thee, and say thou art a necessary development of progressive and associated humanity. The Arts do smile upon thee, and Religion accepteth thine alms.

But for all that, I deal not in thy securities.

-Oh, what a "suggestive" subject! If it were my trade, now could I sermonize till doomsday. But I feel that the spirit of Homily is exhaled already-a transient inspiration that came upon me, unexpectedly glancing over the stock-book of the Mining Board.

The truth is, I have something to say about mining, in the concrete; something experimental about the modus of mining; something in the way of autobiography-instructive, descriptive; something in the Gradgrind line of facts; and my only anxiety now is, to make the transition easy, from a moralizing vein to a copper vein. There is but one route.

We take the cars-cross to Philadelphia-get upon the Reading Railroad, and ride fifty miles. Here we descend at a lonely station-cross a bridge with a river under it, and then another bridge with a canal under it-come to several warehouses, a store and a dwelling, a great many nails lying about in kegs and otherwise, and a score or two of pigs (iron), all on the right bank of the canal. We follow the road along the canal a few rods, and discover a grist

mill and a tavern, built of stone, and four or five other stone houses, huddled together sociably. Here are a corner and cross-roads. We turn to the right, and pass through a street of small stone houses with courtyards. On one side, about half-way along, is a little stone church, and at the end of the street, a large rolling-mill, where they roast their pigs and turn them into nails. Close by are a stone office, and a stone coopering shop, where they make kegs for the nails; a stone table, too; and, in sight at the top of a hill, a pleasant house, not of stone, pleasantly shaded, and with pleasant grounds, well laid out, where live the Iron-masters.

Passing these, and more stone houses beyond the rolling-mill, we go on into the back country, through wild scenery: catching a glimpse, among the woods, of a great smelting furnace devoted exclusively to pigs; crossing a number of bridges over streams of various sizes: climbing a number of hills; and meeting and overtaking many heavy teams, loaded with ore for the furnace, or pigs for the rolling-mill, or coal, or bags of copper for the canal.

The road is worst in the known world. It cannot be said to possess ruts-it is made up of ruts -ruts three feet deep, crossing each other at impossible angles, and qualified by a gentle filling in and overflow of Broadway mud (as it was before the advent of Genin).

We pursue this road for nine miles, and our journey is ended.

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They dug and blasted without regard to expense, and "timbered " as they went down, in true Cornish style, until they had reached a depth of two hundred feet, more or less, when-I forget what-somebody fell in, or the water was too strong for them, or the captainminer got drunk, or died, or their money gave out in consequence of which, the mine was abandoned and went to ruin.

Meanwhile they had found no copper "to speak of." There were indications in abundance; indeed, quite a heap of surface ore betokening a vein thereabouts, but no vein was discovered. So the land passed into the hands of an

Iron Company, and was probed ferruginously, to some extent, and with some

success.

But the superstition died not, that there was "copper there somewhere;" and the legend of the old mine was perpetuated and confirmed by the daily turning-up of incredible specimens of malachite, and by a decided sprinkling of the yellow sulphuret, which bothered the iron men.

At last the fame of their possibilities reached New York; and the "Mine Holes," as they had come to be called (diminutive "holes"), were visited by Gothamites, who leased the right of search for copper, set up a rickety whim," brought a couple of blind horses, a pick or two, some chisels and a spade, built a cabin, and started a new shaft. I saw the newly opened mine in this embryo state.

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You can hardly imagine a more forlorn picture, than that whimsical and shaky windlass; pitched, awry, on the side of a steep bank (not even a sandbank, but a bank of the deepest and most irretrievable mud); a barren heath stretching out indefinitely behind it, with a few hillocks of refuse ore near by, to relieve the monotony; and a blind, dizzy, broken-down, spavined skeleton of a steed, eternally turning, and turning, and turning about it. You have seen, at work in a farm-yard, a trembling and oreaky old churn, of one sheep power:-Well, set it out alone, on a New Jersey flat, and set it going, and you will have an antitype of that solitary whim.

But from this small beginning, the mine grew to be famous. For, just beside the diggers, as the shaft was going down, there was found, unstirred, and close to the top of the ground, an inexhaustible "deposit" of carbonates, green and blue, only waiting to be dipped up and carted away. There could be no mistake about the extent of it, for there was one end exposed, so many feet thick, and testifying an evident infinity of background.

And now the stockholders strutted upon 'Change, and fat dividends were talked of as a thing of to-morrow. The stock was held aloof as too precious for the general market, and, of its own accord, went up to fifteen! The excitement was select, but intense, and there was reason for it.

But, happy is the man who places not his dependence upon malachite. A few

months of digging, and the "deposit," whose depth was measureless, and whose breadth beyond computation, began to dwindle and grow beautifully less, until it had well nigh died out altogether: and the stockholders threw dust in the air, and put on sackcloth, and blamed the president.

But the company went on digging, and hoping, and sinking their shaft, and feeling about for the undiscovered vein, that was still "there somewhere."

Perhaps I should inform the ignorant of the distinction between a "deposit and a vein, or "lode." One is supposed to be the bed of an ancient stream or body of water—the copper in it having been brought from some distant source, and deposited, usually in the form of a carbonate. While the other is formed of more valuable combinations of the metal, found in fissures of rocksprobably in a primitive state-and often extending continuously for considerable distances. Deposits are of uncertain quality and permanence, and are little depended upon in mining. But, a good "lode" is the miner's extremest ambition.

So they were undiscouraged-the "Mine Holes" men-and kept their works going, and still scraped away at their carbonates, and failed not to send copper to Bergen Point, when it was good enough. They had a contrivance for grinding up poor ore, to make it marketable, which shall be described in due time.

I left the ridiculous "whim," churning, desolate, upon its mud-banks, and went comfortably home with a laugh. But, three years passed away, and found me (after a short sojourn at Washington) cross and misanthropic-the belabored and decapitated victim of a venal administration. Sick of governments, and disgusted with polite friendship, I determined to escape those corruptions; and forthwith abjuring civilization, fled (disguised in a beaverteen coat and cowhide boots) to Pennsylvania and the "Mine Holes." It was early winter. The place was inaccessible and dreary as ever, but there were changes in it. Let me astonish you by a new description.

An immense, irregular, and jagged excavation! In one part scooped out, basin shaped, to the depth of some sixty feet; in other parts, varied with pits and rough elevations-with channels cut between high embankments, and caverns hewn away and blown out of the rocks.

Here and there veins of bluish soapstone streaking the interspersed banks; sometimes a little green carbonate of copper. To the left-the out-crop of a huge trap dyke, that is visible for about a hundred feet, and then disappears precipitately, in the direction of the Carnatic. Near this, the mouth of the hundred year old shaft; fallen together, and scarcely noticeable, among the more modern packings; its timbers rotted and protuding from the soil. Running zigzag across these extraordinary “diggings," and leading from different points of the surrounding elevation to their remotest recesses, are cart roads innumerable. Along these roads, stout horses, yoked tandem to small carts, and urged by boy drivers of doubtful morality, are dragging such stuff to the surface as the workmen below can find to exhume, and returning continually for more. These are the Holes, " proper. There lay the "deposit," so long unwithdrawn, and so meagre when it was out-and there the workmen are busy, now, at the "pickings" that are left of it.

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The

To the right is a tall, frame building, of a dingy black, and five stories, groaning with the weight and rumble of heavy machinery. An engine-house of stone, next to it, of smaller dimensions, is puffing from a pipe in the roof, and contains the driving steam-power (sixty horse). Close under the lee of these buildings, and beyond them, as you stand, is the "whim," in full revolution, propped up and made ship shape, and turned by a quadruped, blind, I confess, but otherwise in good case; indicating oats. shaft is uuder cover. The buckets, as they come up, are emptied by the bucket tender, and the material is given over to an inspector to be sorted. This material from the shaft, or the stuff from the "Holes," even the small proportion of it which is considered valuable, contains a large per centage of iron, a very little copper, and a plenty of dirt. dirt is got rid of, by hand, as well as may be, in the sorting, and the residue is taken to the tall building above mentioned, for purification.

The

Here, on the first floor, it is broken by hammers, to a certain uniformity, and then shovelled in between two enormous iron rollers, which crush it to a nut size. Another set of rollers, underneath, reduce it to powder, and it is then caught up and conveyed by a system of elevators to the fifth story.

As this is the top loft, it begins to go down again, and, falling into a hopper, is distributed to a set of revolving complications, called "magnets." These "magnets," by virtue of their attractiveness, decoy the iron into separate chambers, and dispose of it forthwith by an open window. The copper ore, meanwhile, escaping surreptitiously, by covered troughs, to similar attractive complications on the lower stories, is dispossessed of impurities to the utmost possibility of sifting; and, finally, emptying itself into bags, is tested by the assayer, who decrees it to the dogs, or to market.

Returning to the shaft, you cannot fail to notice the famous iron pump, that is connected by a crank with the engine, and sucks up water from the bottom of the shaft, and drains all the subterranean passages, and the "open cutting," and, for an unknown distance, the whole country round. A little cataract pours out of the mouth of it, and dashing off, makes for a hollow half a mile away, and loses itself in the underbrush -not being used to travel above ground. Yet is it forced to do yeoman service by the way, in watering blind horses, and washing ore, and such like imperti

nences.

Now, after a superficial glance at the works, we may return to personalities. I was an exile, and a seeker after barbarism. The magnets, and machinery, and digging, and steam, were to me as trivialities, as light embroidery, as byplay; while my apprehensions were absorbed by one momentous question,"How do people live, hereabouts, and is a man likely to be bored by an intrusion of etiquette and court-manners?" This question upon my lips, I turned anxiously to an amiable and intelligent cart-boy for information. The young gentleman uttered an interjection of several syllables, and with a dextrous half-summerset, contemptuously walked off on his hands.

It was plain that from the breeding of the "Holes," there was nothing to fear; and I was encouraged to investigate further.

I discovered three modes of living. Out on the open plain, in full sight of the engine-house, there stood a row or colony of mud huts, conical and comical -an opening in the roof for escape of smoke-no windows-a little straw inside, laid on the bare ground, and room enough in each to accommodate two

men horizontally. This was the Esquimaux style, and was, in a degree, popu lar among such of the miners as were of an economical and retiring nature; only they had not acquired the refinement of preferring fumigation to respiration; and, for that reason, for the most part, they cooked their meals in the open air.

But for genial souls there was prepared a boarding-house, unique and jovial.

Here the cart-boys most did congregate; and relaxing themselves after a day of toil, were accustomed to afford free entertainments in ground and lofty tumblings, and in the perpetration of jokes, of a highly practical and utilitarian tendency, for the express benefit of their sedater and more pensive fellowlaborers, who affected the quiet virtues of conversation and repose.

This novel and attractive feature of the house was brought into strong relief, and, in fact, made the chief point of interest-the boarders being stowed (promiscuously) in double beds, in a single room, under the tiles of the roof. If the originators of the plan had hoped thereby to promote harmony and brotherly affection, the experiment was a failure. Yet, by way of compensation, it was observed, that whatever might be the state of the culinary department, broils and stews were plentiful in the dormitory. In addition to these trifling oddities, it was likewise made and provided, that to secure a free supply of oxygen to the sleepers, the roof should not be impervious to the weather. So the patrons of this luxurious establishment were privileged to wake of a stormy morning, with the snow an inch or two thick upon their coverlids; to say nothing of gratuitous rheumatism, and other the like extras never charged in the bill.

The landlord and proprietor of these felicities was eighty years old. It was reported of him, that, in adolescence, he had been a "sad dog:" which expression-used, among us, for a worthless scamp, given to billiards, much liked in secret by the ladies, and the model and type of Young America-among the Mine Holes population is synonymous with cart-boy. In his youthful days, then, he had been a ferruginous cart-boy (see explorations of Iron Company, early referred to in this paper). From that apprenticeship he had steadily advanced, until one day, being employed in an iron foundry, he unaccountably lost his balance, and slipped up to the knees in a