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Updated: June 1, 2025
For many days after the catastrophe Oliver Trembath lay in his bed suffering from severe cuts and bruises, as well as from what must have been, as nearly as possible, concussion of the brain, for he had certainly been washed down one of the winzes, although he himself retained only a confused recollection of the events of that terrible day, and could not tell what had befallen him.
His syndicate was finally organized, and with the money thus made available, all possible work was done for the next twelve months, on shaft, levels, cross-cuts, drifts, winzes, and raises.
"How far down have we come?" inquired Oliver. "About eighty fathoms," said the captain; "we shall now go along this level and get into the pump-shaft, by which we can descend to the bottom. Take care of your feet and head as you go, for you'll be apt to run against the rocks that hang down, and the winzes are dangerous."
When the levels have been driven a considerable distance from the shaft, the air naturally becomes bad from want of circulation. To remedy this evil, holes, or short shafts, called "winzes," are sunk at intervals from the upper to the lower levels.
Robert Fairchild hastily made his toilet, then answered the ringing of the dinner bell, to be introduced to strong-shouldered men who gathered about the long tables; Cornishmen, who talked an "h-less" language, ruddy-faced Americans, and a sprinkling of English, all of whom conversed about things which were to Fairchild as so much Greek, of "levels" and "stopes" and "winzes", of "skips" and "manways" and "raises", which meant nothing to the man who yet must master them all, if he were to follow his ambition.
In this work he was ably assisted by Secretary Jack Muddle, who became quite celebrated as a clear expounder and explainer of veins, lodes, ores, cross-cuts, shafts, levels, winzes, minerals, metals, and mines insomuch that he was regarded by many of the confiding public who frequented his office as a more thoroughly learned and scientific man than George Augustus himself.
At other times the men lose hold of the ladders `fall away' from them, as they express it or stumble into a winze, which is a small shaft connecting level with level, in which latter case death is almost certain to ensue, many of the winzes being sixty feet deep. In St. Just you will see many poor fellows who have been blinded or maimed in the mines.
"There's a considerable space above and below you here, sir," said the captain, stopping suddenly in a level which was not more than three feet wide. Oliver had been so intent on his feet, and mindful of the winzes, that he had failed to observe the immense black opening overhead.
A man named Richard a powerful man and a cool experienced miner, who had faced death in almost every form was at work in one of the lowest levels with his son William, a youth of twenty-one, and his nephew, a lad of seventeen, who was the sole support of a widowed mother with six children. They were thirty fathoms from one of the winzes down which the water streamed.
About some of the Durham pit-mouths I have been given the impression that the human race lay collected there; and that the notion of hiding himself in a mine must have occurred to every man alive, and sent him thither. In these lead mines, as in most vein-mining, there are more shafts than in collieries, and hardly any attempt at artificial ventilation, except at rises, winzes and cul-de-sacs.
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