The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1875-01-29

LASCHES OCCUR-PERILS OF TuB MINERS.--A
miner in Utah writes to an eastern paper,
under date of January 18th, and gives an in.
teresting account OF serious accident that
happened u short time before 10 one Of the
mining camps, occaSioned by heavy snow
slide. He says:
"In one of our mining camps, known as
big Cottonwood the mountain peaks
loom up to the height OF from 1000 to 49,.
900 feet, and during the winter the snow
storms rage necessarily. Consequently the
camp is subjected to the most terrific
snow-sides. One of those storms was
of the most fearful character-not a
little fall Of snow of six or eight
inches during q night, but that many feet,
with the wind bowling and drifting the snow
in every direction. There are places up
there where the snow ia probably over forty
feet deep. These aYalanchcs are caused by
the wind sweeping up Oh one side Of the
mountain and forming large drift just over
the ridge on the opposite side, which soon
becomes too heavy, and detacbing itself,
plunges down the mountain, increasing in
size until a moving mass of snow, covering
acres, and ten to forty feet thick, sweeps
with the rapidity of lightning down into the
carions, carrying everything before it. No
soft snow, bus pack and jammed to-
gether so solid that the moment the mass
stops heavily-loadcd ore.teams can he driven
anywhere on top of it, the horses shoes only
making an impression. One Of these slides
swept over a mine called the Anna last Tues
day, killing four men. The mine was work
ing six men on eiynt-bour shifts, which he.
ceSsarily kept two men ut work while four
were either sleeping or resting. Their cabin,
or boarding. house, Immediately in front OF
the tuunel.they were running, was built very
strong, and considered safe from slides.
At i o'clock at night the shafts were
changed, and the two men whose duty came
on left two of the men in the house asleep,
and the other two sitting up ut the fire. One
had commenced writing 4 letter, and the
other was sitting on Il stool smoking his pipe.
The two men had just reached the face, (Or
back end of the tunnel, which was in Il dis
tance of four hundred feetD and one had
raised the sled9c to strike the drill when
they heard the roar Of the slide. They ran
back TO the mouth, which the slide had run
over. leaving it filed with about five feet of
snow. which they had TO dig through, and
on getting out found nothing in sight. The
house was swept away completely. They
raised an alarm as soon as possible, and get
ting word up to the mine called the Prince
of Wales, which was running about one hun.
dred hands, they all turned out and COM
menced digging for the house, which was
not found until late the next morning. 1t
had been carried down the mountain about
two thousand feet, with about thirty feet of
snow on top Of it. The four men inside
were found just as the other two bad left
them. The snow had broken through
the roof, and had envelopad them SO sud-
denly that they had not moved. They were
not braiscd in any way, but had been sutfo-
| Gifted. The man sat there at the table in the
act Of writing, the inkstand not even having
| tipped over, but the man smoking had pro-
badly heard it coming one second before he
was struck, as his pipe lay between bis feet
| There they sat nodded in the snow, looking
| as natural as if alive. The two men in bed
lay with the blankets over them rs smoothly
| as if just spread. The men who helped
dig them out, and who brought the
| bodies into the city, said that by
| the looks of the men they couldn't have
awakened at all. The slides have started il
early this year. There have been seven men
killed within the last two weeks and mum
Der of animals; but the camp for snow-sllde:
is Little Cottonwood" at which place, {
couple of winters ago, an avalanche came
down killing thirteen men and some thirty
odd animals. A rumor is in circulation this
evening that another had happened at tho
same place, killing slN men.