This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1868 edition. Excerpt: ...from its resemblance to a bell. Here, when lighted up, the scene is very remarkable. A more extraordinary spot, perhaps, is in the neighbourhood, at the foot of the Winnats, a deep and narrow inclined chasm, about a mile in length. Here is the Speedwell Mine, an artificial excavation made in searching ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1868 edition. Excerpt: ...from its resemblance to a bell. Here, when lighted up, the scene is very remarkable. A more extraordinary spot, perhaps, is in the neighbourhood, at the foot of the Winnats, a deep and narrow inclined chasm, about a mile in length. Here is the Speedwell Mine, an artificial excavation made in searching for lead, leading to a great natural cavern. After descending upwards of a hundred steps and reaching the level, the visitor embarks in a boat upon a channel so narrow as to be able to touch the rocks on both sides and the ceiling above. After proceeding nearly half a mile, the guide pushing along the boat, an immense chasm in the mountain is reached, and landing upon a ledge of rock, the scene becomes wonderfully strange and appalling when lighted up with a Bengal light. On the one hand there is an abyss of unknown depth, appropriately called the " Bottomless Pit," into which the water falls from the level with a startling sound, and which swallowed up forty thousand tons of material in the excavation of the mine. On the other hand an enormous cavity opens above, the ceiling of which no light can reach, for rockets have been fired off, and have given out their brilliant sparks as freely as from the surface of the earth. In this neighbourhood is the Old Tor Mine, out of which many a splendid piece of spar has been obtained, also the "Tre Cliff," or "Blue John Mine," one of the largest natural, as well as artificial, excavations in Derbyshire. In this mine is found the beautiful mineral called fluor, or, more commonly, "Derbyshire spar," a composition of lime and acid, found in small detached pieces in the limestone rock. Rude steps, leading downwards about sixty yards, lead to a series of caverns and...
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