Government regulations and the interest of proprietors require that the laborers should be well fed and housed and tended during sickness.  Every mining establishment maintains a physician either on its own account or jointly with a neighbor.  The national dish of Russia, schee, is served daily, with at least a pound of beef.  Sometimes the treatment of the men lapses into negligence toward the close of the season, especially if the enterprise is unfortunate; but this is not the case in the early months.  The mining proprietors understand the importance of keeping their laborers in good health, and to secure this end there is nothing better than proper food and lodging.  Vodki is dealt out in quantities sufficiently small to prevent intoxication, except on certain feast-days, when all can get drunk to their liking.  No drinking shops can be kept on the premises until the season’s work is over and the men are preparing to depart.

Every laborer is paid for extra work, and if industrious and prudent his wages will equal thirty-five or forty roubles a month beside his board.  While in debt he is required by law to work every day, not even resting on Saints’ days or Sundays.  The working season lasting only about four months, early and late hours are a necessity.  When the year’s operations are ended the most of the men find their way to the larger towns, where they generally waste their substance in riotous living till the return of spring.  As in mining communities everywhere, the prudent and economical are a minority.

The mines in the government of Yeneseisk are generally on the tributaries of the Yenesei river.  The valley of the Pit is rich in gold deposits, and has yielded large fortunes to lucky operators during the past twenty years.  Usually the pay-dirt begins twenty or thirty feet below the surface, and I heard of a mine that yielded handsome profits though the gold-bearing earth was under seventy feet of soil.  Prospecting is conducted with great care, and no mining enterprise is commenced without a thorough survey of the region to be developed.  Wells or pits are dug at regular intervals, the exact depth and the character of the upper earth being noted.  This often involves a large expenditure of money and labor, and many fortunes have been wasted, by parties whose lucky star was not in the ascendant, in their persistent yet unsuccessful search for paying mines.

Solid rock is sometimes struck sooner or later after commencing work, which renders the expense of digging vastly greater.  In such cases, unless great certainty exists of striking a rich vein of gold beneath, the labor is suspended, the spot vacated, and another selected with perhaps like results.

Occasionally some sanguine operator will push his well down through fifty feet of solid rock at a great outlay, and with vast labor, to find himself possessed of the means for a large fortune, while another will find himself ruined by his failure to strike the expected gold.