The day was dawning.

The riggers and other artisans of the shipping would before very long be astir.

No matter.
The great staple exported from Whitehaven was then, and still is, coal.
The town is surrounded by mines; the town is built on mines; the ships moor over mines.

The mines honeycomb the land in all directions, and extend in galleries of grottoes for two miles under the sea.

By the falling in of the more ancient collieries numerous houses have been swallowed, as if by an earthquake, and a consternation spread, like that of Lisbon, in 1755.