INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A MINING ENGINEER - 1918 - PREFACE - MY aim in this book is as modest as my method is informal. I have often been asked to publish my Reminiscences, but have refrained from attempting the task, rather from diffidence as to mv literary powers than from lack of interesting incident or useful experience. My present decision to put together in consecutive order a certain number of those incidents and experiences, is not to be mistaken as an endeavour to compile a conventional volume of reminiscences. I am fully aware that my book will rely for its value on its matter, not on its manner. There is plenty of daily matter in the life of a mining engineer, and I have had my full share of adventure in many lands. But I doubt if I should have been induced to make a book out of my own life, except in the hope of helping the noble work of the St. Dunstans Hostel for BlindedSoldiers and Sailors, to whose funds it will be my privilege to contribute all the sale-proceeds of the first edition of this volume. My object is to assist our blinded heroes, and if some invalid soldiers derive an hours relaxation from , these pages, I shall be amply rewarded for the many hours which I have given to the writing of them. The informal character of the book, which has been written from diaries and letters, seems to render it inappropriate to refer otherwise than casually to many friends and companions of former days and for the same reason I have avoided set descriptions of the countries which I have visited, or of the mines and the many technical problems connected therewith that make the profession of a mining engineer so interesting. TO THE MEMORY OF MY WIFE. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. SOUTHERN STATES - - - - - I I 11 COLORADO - - - - - - - 33 111. ALONG WEST AFRICAN SHORES - - - 56 IV. PIONEERING WITH THE FRENCH ON THE GOLD COAST - - - - - - - 73 V. EXPLORING IN WASSAU AND APPOLONIA, WEST AFRICA - - - - 95 I VI. FROM THE GOLD COAST TO MOROCCO - - 119 VII. ACROSS THE GREAT LONE LANDJJ TO FORT MCLEOD - - - - - - - I31 VIII. FORT MCLEOD TO MONTANA AND VANCOUVER - 149 IX. VANCOUVER ISLAND AND THE SOUTHERN STATES 166 X. TO CENTRAL AMERICA - - - - - 182 XI. SETTLING DOWN TO LIFE IN NICARAGUA - 1 9 XII. XIII. XIV. I xv. XYI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. A STORMY PERIOD - - - - MOMO TOMB0 AND RETURN TO ENGLAND - MALAY PENINSULA-MOUNT OPHIR - - - MALAY PENINSULA-MALACCA - - - CHINA-AUSTRALIA-NEW ZEALAND - - URUGUAY - - - - - - - URUGUAY CONTINUED - - - - - URUGUAY CONTINUED - - - - - URUGUAY CONTINUED - - - - IN THE LOW COUNTRY, SOUTH AFRICA - - INCIDENTS AND EXPERIENCES LIFE IN THE MINING ENGINEER CHAPTER I. . IT was in 1872, in the Isle of Wight, looking out of a window towards the Solent, that I suddenly heard an old friend of my fathers say to him, What are you going to do with that boy Has he any special bent to which my father replied, Something in the engineering line I think is his bent. Then send him to me, and if he is any good I will turn him into a Coal Mining Engineer. And so it was decided I was to go to a leading Colliery in the North. In due course it was arranged I was also after some pracQca1 experience, to enter for the R. S. M. Course. s I remember so well my first three weeks underground, they are to this day deeply ingrained in my mind, as they proved to be three weeks of what led me to think that coal mining was not only a very risky life, but one that would soon end it, for in that short period I was within an ace of four times losing it and thus it happened...