The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-09-08


the surface as fast as possible. The scene at the
mouth of the shaft as the basket containing the
bodies comes up is appalling.
n More particulars will be ascertained as soon as
special messengers arrive from the mines
The Terrible News Confirmed.
Special Despatch TO The EUeni1g Telegraph.
SCRANTON, Sept Sill A. Mt is reliably
reported that several persons have just arrived
from Plymouth and bring the intelligence that
the Avondale miners have been found huddled
together in heap, all dead not the slightest
indication of life anywhere to be found.
The Scene of the Great Catastrophe.
Special Despatch TO The EUening Telegraph.
SCRANTON, Sept. S.--The scene of this catas-
trophe, unparalleled in the history of American
mining is on the Lackawanna and Bloomsbury
Railroad, twenty-five miles from Scranton, about
six from Wilkesbarre and about one-and-a-half
below the hamlet of Plymouth. The shaft is
sunk in the side of steep mountain, is 237
feet deep and 40 below the mountain;
has tunnel opening into which 1t
is dug through the mountain. The main gang
ways of the mines are nearly east and west from
the shaft the first being about 1900 feet in
length and the latter about 800 Both east and
west the inclines are upwards, and the gang
ways about ten feet in the clear The sides
of the shaft are numbered with wooden fix
lures. The great wooden building in which
was the breaking machinery was Immediately
upon the mouth, and all of this infammable
material was dry as tinder. If a spark of fire
touched any of this wood anywhere, even
outside the mine, great conflagration was in
evitable, and its communication to the interior
of the shaft and mine almost certain. To these
facts must be added that the mine had no air
hole distinct from the shaft. The Miners work.
ing far down in the bowels of the earth, had
but that one aperture by which to secure egress
to the surface; that cut off, the wholesale de-
struction of human life which has occurred was
sure to happen.
am informed that very few of the mines have
been designed to prove, like Avondale, a horri
BILE sepulchre from trivial cause but are gene
rally provided with air holes, separate from the
shaft, so that the miners, cut off by any disaster
from the one, can have recourse to the other as
a means of escape.
The Last Raw of Hope Fled.
Special Despatch TO The EUeninJ Telegraph.
PLYMOUTH Sept. S-3 A. M.-The truth is at
last known, and the last faint ray of hope has
been wrung from the sorrow-stricken families
of those who. since Monday morning. have been
buried beneath the earth their fate being until
this time uncertain.
Where the Bodies Were Found.
At about half-past 3 o'clock this morning,
after several Intellectual attempts had been made,
q successful descent was at last effected, and
four or five men penetrated the mine. The first
body found was that of Steele.
Further on, and in the last chamber, where
they had fled for safety from the fatal choke
damp, they found the bodies of the 2O3 miners
dead. They laid piled upon each other, in all
conceivable positions. Their features were con-
tracted in the agonies of death.
The Walls of the Living.
When the dreadful intelligence reached the
surface, and passed with lightning rapidity from
lip to lip, wall of woe was sent forth like the
parting strain of dying hope. Notwithstand-
ing that all were assured there could be no one
alive in the mine, there still fingered belief
that some ten, twenty, or thirty would be found
alive, and among this small number fond wife,
child, or parent imagined those most dear to
them.
Heartrending Scenes.
All is now confusion about the shaft, and us
each car or basket comes up freighted with its
lfcless cargo there is always some one to dis
cover that he is 'My husband Oh God" "Oh,
God! He is my brother, he is my father"
ETC.. and after witnessing with their own
eyes what experienced wisdom failed to make
them believe they fell PROSTATE to the ground,
worn out and distracted at the elimination of
the most agonizng calamity that ever occurred
in this country.
CargOes of Ice
are being sent to the scene, and as fast as the
bodies are being taken out they are placed in it.
FROM THE PACIFIC COAST