West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1878-09-07
Heat In the Nevada Mines.

Virginia New EuterrriseI
Those who have not recently explored
the lower levels of the leading mines of
the Comstock can have but a very faint
conception of the heat prevailing therein
at the present time. The heat is terri
bile even in the winter; il is like the
breath of furnace, and i'm some place,
where men are obliged 10 work il is de
hclent in oxygen, that life-supportinp
ingredient having been burned out bY
the many candles used, and i'm variou,
ways absorbed and exhausted. Ii car
be felt piercing through the little cloth
ing worn, drying the saliva i'm the
mouth, and shriveling the eyeballs. A
temperature of one hundred and twenty
to one hundred and thirty degrees is ~
much above blood heat that the process
of cooking begins in the human frame.
hut for the floods of perspiration cover
ing the body the flesh would really be
cooked tO a certain extent. 4 famous
English philosopher has given an ac.
count of his going into nm oven hot
enough To cook beefsteak and re.
mained there long enough till one was
actually cooked Had il been the dead
instead the living body of the philoso.
would undoubtedly have been done to
turn" All that saved the experi.
menter as he himself says, was the fact
that he was constantly in n state of pro-
fuse perspiration. A temperature above
the natural heat of the body uudoubt-
edly attacks it, and causes the fesh Ia
undergo the first stages of cooking.
This happens TO n miner the moment
- N nNWnN NtsaNa
pores of the skin. The stomach is first
affected, then the brain. 1t is probably
through disorder of, and sickness at the
stomach, that perspiration is checked.
AS soon as perspiratiOn ceases to flow
the body begins 10 cook, and first of all
apparently, the brain, as the man at
once becomes delirious-as wildly i'm
sane as any patient in a lunatic asylum.
Cases OF this kind occur much more fire.
quently than is supposed or generally
known of late they have been very
frequent in the California and Consoli-
dated Virginia Mines. When a miner
suddenly begins TO rave or talk incohe-
rently, his companions doctor" him.
1t is rough treatment they give him, but
1T IL found TO be very effective The
man affected is seized and carried To the
coolest place in the vicinity, when he is
bound hand and foot, and put through
a process of rubbing. The friction is
applied To the stomach, which is found
TO be the seat of the trouble, and i'm
which knots nearly the size of a
mans fist are found to have formed
These must be rubbed out, and as soon
as they disappear perspiration again
starts and the man regains his senses.
The rubbing is sometimes done with n
piece of gummy sack but as this is liza
bic TO cause useless abrasion of the skin
a pick handle is preferred. To be rub
bed down by pick handle i'm the hands
OF a muscular miner is not such treat
ment AZ any man in his senses would be
likely TO greatly desire, nor does the
miner, even in his delirium, desire il.
therefore he is tied in such way that
he can not resist. The miners say that
they can bring a man out all right bv
their method of treatment i'm less than
half the time that it would he done by
the physicians. A day or two since at
the Consolidated Virginia the men took
one OF their companions who became
deranged from the heat, tied him at the
end OF rope and lowered him about
one hundred feet TO place where he
could be conveniently " dOctored," then
went at him with their pick handles,
and soon brought him out all right
Day before yesterday n thing happened
in the Consolidated Virginia shaft
which borders on the miraculous. a
man was standing on plank that was
placed across the shaft when he sud
denly tainted and fell upon his back, ly-
ing as securely along the plank as
though he had been placed there with
the greatest care. II was quite as won
derful, too, that he remained lust rs he
fell sufficiently long 10 allow his fellow
wOrkmen 70 reach him and withdraw
him from his perilous position. Not
once in ten thousand times would a
mans life be saved when fainting in
such position. The shaft mentioned
is 20 fearfully hot that beside purgatory
would be reckoned a cOOling-Of station.
Although the men who work there are
a species Of human salamander-Rike
the philosopher who got into the oven
along with the beefsteak-still they can
not work but about ten minutes at a
time. They then fall back and let
other men come ~ the front. In this
way Of working IL Is asserted that there
are places in the bonanza mines where
IL is now costing sixteen dollars per dav
20 do the work Of one man. The men
could do nothing at all but for the lib
eral supply of ice and ice-water allowed
them. They swallow ice-water by the
gallon, and frequently pour the same
over each other. Tn these hot places
they use about ninety-fye pounds
Of ice per day 10 the man. Without
ice none Of our leading mines could be
worked. Men cannot live i'm the lower
levels without an ample supply Of ice
water, and even with IL they are. ~ we
have seen, almost cooked alive and rem
dered delirious-w would die indeed were
they not promptly taken in hand and
" doctOred."
HE was going down the street. and
when he turned his head 10 look at a
dog fight, he ran slap bang into a FASH
iOnable female, who was wondering how
her trail looked in n large plate glass
window she was passing The man
seemed as embarrassed as lecturer feel
ing his knife slide down his pantaloon
leg through hole in his pocket while
he was standing on his tip tOes and shak-
ing both hands at, and trying 10 pierce
the roof with his flashing eye The
woman was as mad ~ n ham strung
mule. There we're no arrests. -
Wheeling Le1der