Yet there can be no doubt, that the same capital well
employed in these mines would have yielded an immense return: a
confidential man of business, a practical miner and assayer, would
have been all that was required.
Captain Head has described the wonderful load which the "Apires,"
truly beasts of burden, carry up from the deepest mines. I confess
I thought the account exaggerated: so that I was glad to take an
opportunity of weighing one of the loads, which I picked out by
hazard. It required considerable exertion on my part, when standing
directly over it, to lift it from the ground. The load was
considered under weight when found to be 197 pounds. The apire had
carried this up eighty perpendicular yards,--part of the way by a
steep passage, but the greater part up notched poles, placed in a
zigzag line up the shaft. According to the general regulation, the
apire is not allowed to halt for breath, except the mine is six
hundred feet deep. The average load is considered as rather more
than 200 pounds, and I have been assured that one of 300 pounds
(twenty-two stone and a half) by way of a trial has been brought up
from the deepest mine! At this time the apires were bringing up the
usual load twelve times in the day; that is 2400 pounds from eighty
yards deep; and they were employed in the intervals in breaking and
picking ore.
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