You stand at the mouth of the mine shaft and the mine shaft goes down into the earth and the going down is the descent into the place where the wealth is. The wealth is underground. The wealth has always been underground. The gold and the silver and the coal and the copper and the iron are underground and the underground is where men go to get them. The mine shaft is the entrance. The mine shaft is the throat of the earth and the throat of the earth swallows men in the morning and coughs them up in the evening and the swallowing and coughing is the shift and the shift is eight hours in the dark a thousand feet below the surface.

The Comstock Lode in Nevada produced four hundred million dollars in silver in twenty years and the four hundred million built San Francisco. The silver came out of the mine shafts of Virginia City and the mine shafts went down two thousand feet and the two thousand feet down was the deepest mining in the world at the time and the deepest mining in the world at the time meant the temperature at the bottom was a hundred and fifty degrees and the hundred and fifty degrees meant the miners worked fifteen minute shifts because the heat would kill them if they worked longer. The Comstock Lode built mansions on Nob Hill. The Comstock Lode funded the transcontinental railroad. The Comstock Lode paid for the Civil War. The wealth came out of the hole and the hole gave Virginia City twenty thousand people and then the silver ran out and Virginia City emptied and the emptying is the mine shaft's aftermath which is the ghost town.

The Monongah mine disaster of nineteen oh seven killed three hundred and sixty two men in West Virginia and the killing three hundred and sixty two was the worst mining disaster in American history. The explosion was caused by dust and gas and the dust and gas were always present and the always present meant the explosion was not a matter of if but when. The mine at Monongah was a coal mine and the coal mine employed the town and the town existed because of the mine and the mine killed the town's men in one morning. The disaster led to the creation of the Bureau of Mines which was the government finally acknowledging that the mine shaft kills and the killing should be regulated. Before Monongah the mine owner decided what was safe. After Monongah the government decided. The mine shaft killed three hundred and sixty two men to teach the country that regulation is written in the blood of workers.

In Butte Montana the Berkeley Pit is an open pit copper mine that filled with water after the pumps were turned off in nineteen eighty two and the water that filled it is toxic. The water is a mile wide and nine hundred feet deep and the nine hundred feet of toxic water is the largest Superfund site in America. The water is so acidic it killed a flock of snow geese that landed on it in nineteen ninety five. Three hundred and forty two geese. They landed on the water because the water looked like a lake and the looking like a lake was the deception and the deception killed them. The Berkeley Pit is the mine shaft turned inside out. The mine shaft goes down. The pit was dug down. The result is the same. The earth was opened and the wealth was taken and the hole remains and the hole fills with poison.

You look down the mine shaft and the shaft is dark and the dark is absolute and the absolute dark is the dark that miners work in. The headlamp on the helmet is the only light. The headlamp makes a circle on the rock face and the circle on the rock face is the miner's world. The miner's world is three feet in diameter. The miner's world is the rock in front of his face and the rock in front of his face is the seam and the seam is the coal or the gold or the copper and the coal or the gold or the copper is why he is a thousand feet underground in the dark. The mine shaft. The descent. The hole where the wealth is. The hole where the men go. The hole that gives the economy its fuel and takes the miner's lungs. The dark. The absolute dark. The headlamp. The seam. The shift ending. The cage rising. The light at the top.