The Orangeburg news. [volume] (Orangeburg, S.C.) 1867-1875, 1869-09-18

blocked with fnllen timbers. Two fresh
volunteers were then lowered with hatch
cts. After twenty minutes they were
drawn up again, faint and breathless.
They had penetrated seventy or eighty
yards into gangway, finding three dead
mules, and coming at last to a closed
aeor. They hammered at it and waited
for an answering sound, but no answer
came, and through the crevices poured
clouds of sulphurous vapor-the fatal
s'biack damp" Several other parties, III
the course of the evening and night,
made attempts to penetrate into the
gangways, but with little more success.
Few could remain more than FIVE or six
minutes, and when drawn up they were
all speechiess and exhausted. Several
were brought back by their companions
entirely insensible. Two brave fellows,
Daniel Jones and Thomas Williams,
were brought back dead. There
was no hope now that any of the
miners remained alive, unless possibly
they had succeeded in walling themselves
lin at some remote part of the mine so
effectually as to prevent the entrance of
the foul gasses from the shaft. 1t was
only the shadow of hope ; still the
work went on, while women sat wiring
lug their hands and wecpiag for their
husbands and children, and miners
from distant regions came in hundreds to
offer their assistance. BY nine o'clock
on Tuesday morning an engine and fan
had been placed in position to force fresh
air into the mine. All day long parties
went down ut intervals, but the black
damp drove them back, and the fans did
not seem to gain upon it. About four ia
the afternoon it was discovered that the
fire at the foot of the shaft, which was
supposed to be entirely extinguishcd, had
been revived by the fresh current, aud
communicated with mass of coal lying
near. Thus the workmen had actually
been accelerating the generation of gas,
and destroying what little vestigenf hope
might remain for their imprisoned COM
radcs. n stream of water was with some
difficulty brought to play upon the
flames, and the greater part of the night
was devoted to the suppression of the
fire, the clouds of gas that came up the
shaft being meanwhile so awful that
workmen at the mouth were removed in
sensible. Between two and three o'clock
on Wednesday morning two bodies were
found both feariully dist fgured and un-
recognizable. About 6:30 a party Of
four succeeded in penetrating some dis
'tance into one of the principle galleries,
aud came upon the bodies of over sixty
more where they had met their fate to-
gethcr. They had constructed two bar
riers of cars and refuse coal, and stripped
off their CLOTHES tos.9p the crevices. One
poor fellow, whose duty it seems to have
been to close the last aperture after all
had passed beyond it, had f,ller dead on
the outside, his work not yet completed.
Fathers aud sons were found in each
others arms. Somelay with their hands
clenched as if in agony, some with their
faces buried in the ground, some in the
attitude of prayer While we write the
labor of bringing out the bodies still
goes on.
The causes of this horrible affair seem
plain enough The shaft upon which
the lives of these two hundred men de-
pended was tindcr-box, and fire was
made in the bottom of it Not stick of
wood should be used in such places if
iron can be substituted, as for most of
the equipment of "A mine it certainly can
be. And that there was not a separate
shaft for ventilation is simply monstrous
The miners arc said to declare that not
another days work shall be done in any
mine which has not vaIltilating shaft
Doubtless they arc in earnest, but we
have no confidence '6hat their resolution
would be kept. The most reckless of
men are always those whose occupations
are most perillous. Miners we know are
not ignorant of their danger. Mine
owners are not heartlcss. But both
manifest i propensity to run fearful
risks, which seems to us entirely inexpli-
cable. IF men are the victims OF such
suicidal tendencies,it is the duty of the
government to protect them against their
own foily.