The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1869-09-30

~
fpiii tl.e foul air, and one who vcntured
too far, a miner, named David Jones,
fell into that pleasant sleep which had
already proved fatal TO onc--the sleep
that knows no waking. He was the
! second victim Of the attempts at rescue
In the excitement Of the day, botl, he
fand Williams had been taking liquor,
and that, always makes men peculiarly
. susceptible to the dumps. Finally,
about midnight, further efforts were
! abandoned for the tune, aud the major
! ity or tho 5000 spectators CEASED to hope.
On Tuesday forenoon a fan, rInaing
by ysteam, began to drive pure aisarom
the top down into the mine through q
cahvas pipe Is inches in diameter. -
During the day party after party went
down, undetcrred by the suvironing
periis; but the black danips was so
prevalent that they could not penetrate
far. Just ut night it was discovered that
the fire in the great furnace at the
bottom, which those who descended on
Monday night had reported extin-
yuished, was still burning. All day the
column Of air forced down by tho fan
had been driving that suIphurous poison
back through the chambers of the mine.
ifauy man Aqd been alive there, this
would have killed them; but none were.
Not until after midnight was the fire at
last put out.
At3 Oh "Wednesday morning the first
| victims were found--two men who had
charge of the mules. They were lying
on their faces, upon the stable iioor,
stone dead, with nccks bloatcd and
mouths bloody. When these bodies
were borne out through tho tunnel. the
multitudes, covering all the hillside as
in n great amphithcater, and their faces
lighted up by the glowing embankment,
looked on with Il hush of silence. Next
party of three old miners discovered
| that a passage in II remote section of the
! mine was closed up with coal and dust.
Breaking through this barrier, and an
other like it, they came upon the most
| startling scene in all the great tragedy.
| Hither sixty three men and boys had
retreatcd. On first taking the alarm,
they evidently huddled here, as into
bottle, and tried to seal up the mouth
before the deadly carbo,lic acid gas-re-
sulting from the exhaustion of the pure
air-should flow in to poison them. In
| the passnge a car was standing. They
turned this across the track piled coal
beside and upon it, to fill tho "sang-
way''; took off their woolen shirts, and
using them for sacks, brought fine coal
dust to close the interstices aud then
tore their shirts to rags, and stuffed
them in also. Thus they raised All
almost air-tight barricade against Death.
Then they fell back few feet, and In
the same manner built u second, which
now stood equally complete, except that
near the top hole was left large enough
for II man. to creep through. And be-
tween the two there srds n man, like the
rest, stark in death. Whether he had
staid outside to plaster up all the crevices
bat this, and then enter again through
it, or stood inside, and made the aperture
in i vain endeavor to escape after he
saw his comrades dying, none can tel.
In this passage. twenty feet wide, ten
feet high, and l20 feet long, the doomed
men had witnessed the approach Of that
enemy who laughs at all barricades.-
What was the Charge of the Six Hun
dred, with the wild shouts, the rush of
air, and the unconsciousness of peril
which heated blood brings, to the wait
ing of these, with set teeth, and clinchcd
hands, and staring eyes, for the silent,
subtle death to come? Happily it did
come, stealing into their fortress, and
shifting them down with its swift poison,
instead of leaving them to the slower
poison which their own breaths alone
would soon have engendered.
Now, the fixed faces Of most were easy
aud placid. Half-a-doZen were sitting
in a group in careless positions, as if
! they had been coiiversing. One, with
| his eyes wide open, stood upright, lean
ing against a pile Of coal. Another held
! his pipe i'm his hand, aud was in the act
of filling it. Some lay upon their faces
with foreheads resting on their crossed
arms. Others We're huddled one upon
another There We're some features dis
tordcd with agony; but whether from
terror or from physical pain it was i'm
. possible to determine. There were faces
which had fairly ground themselves in
! to the coal dust rs if to catch the last
mors;el Of fresh air. There were mouths
with great masses of foam standing out,
and nostriis from which blood had
! tr.cli.ed, ard necks and breasts all
swollen and bioated. The most touch
ing sight was IA gray-haHed father, who
! had three SONS in the mine. He sat
/ with his two youngest boys, twelve and
fifteen years old, one ciasped in either
arm 50 firm was his embrace of one,
even in DEATH that the corpses could not
he separated; but both We're brought to
the surface together. There were other
fathers in that horrible pit, all with
their sons locked in their arms; and
there were two little brothers, with no
parents, who lay in each others en-