The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1889-02-02


had gone, an the shaft wurr choked
wi horrors for we pore miners tn
monny long day!"
The space is narrow In a mine shaft,
and the impenetrable darkness makes
it appear the more contracted than 1t
really is. The miners lamps are
as FREELY twinklings. Water filters
through the rocky walls and patters
upon yea as you pass down like un-
comfortable raindrops from dripping
caves. The oscillations OF the rope
that holds your life are painfully APP
parent The cheerful thought can not
be driven away that some ponderous
rock, which has been hanging for
years from one side of the shaft or the
other. will more than likely be given
the jar this trip which will fetch it
laundering down upon the car. Even
the fact that the miners make this trip
twice day, laughing and talking, and
even humming snatches of folksongs-
but never whistling; to whistle In a
coal mine will fetch the worst of luck,
they say-fails to remove all thought
of danger from the mind of a novice
descending a mine shaft. There may
be stranger sensations of happiness
and relief than those he feels when the
car reaches the bottom, but / doubt it.
Every one who can read knows what
coal mine is like. One is like another,
the galleries crossing each other in all
directions, like the streets of a town,
with many turnings-a black and
deep city, city of coal. Some of the
galleries are long and wide and well
ventilated; others are low, narrow and
tortuous, with the air suspiciously foul
and charged with danger. The laden
cars, trundling along the gloomy tram
ways toward the foot of the shaft, pass
the empty ones going back into the
hidden depths for other burdens. The
noise of blasts, the smell of gunpowder.
the rumble here and there of falling
coal, the glimmer of lamps whose fee
BILE rays barely outline the ghoulish
forms of the miners at their toll, the
noise of water pouring from the many
subterranean veins sundered by the
pick and drill-these are the sights
and sounds that surround the life a
miner leads, by night and day, hum
dreds and hundreds of feet beneath
the ground. Work never ceases in a
coal mine when it is being ''run" to
its full capacity. One set of men go
down the shaft at daylight and come
out at dark, meeting at the mouth of
the shaft the men who are going down
for the night '-shift," and whom they
will meet coming out again next morn
ing, if all has been well.
NAY, lad, don't thee never vessel
in the mine,' warned my old miner
guide; "for thee'll drive tn gud luck
sperit DOT an let the bad luck divvel
in. Thurs many a fall o. coal that's
crashed doom on scores O pore lads
a wurrikin' in the dep's that's coom'd
all along O some cranky rattle-brin
oop an wesselin' afore they knowd tn
like o. him dom ia wesselin' some
tune 0that tn divvel likes to dance to.
The bosses may score the falls to shaky
props and the like o. that, but it's tn
wesselin' as does it oftentimes, lad.
So don't thee vessel here what times
thee be's long wi u.s."
Fire-damp explosions and falls Of
roof and walls are the greatest dangers
the coal miner fears. The one has been
greatly lessened of late years by i'm
proved ventilation of mines-an i'm
provement that was compelled by leg
islation, however. Before Davy gave
to miners the safety lamp that all but
canonized him among them, it was the
custom to light the fire-damp in coal
mines every night. 1t is within the
memory of old miners when it was the
duty of one man to fire the gas in GER
tain mines, especially those of Cont
mental Europe, so that the explosion
might be provoked and the mine made
accessible and comparatively safe for
the men again next day. Wrapped in
covering of wool or leather, the face
protected by mask and the head en-
veloped in a hood like monks
cowl, this man entered the nois-
ONE depths to perform the dam
gerous task imposed upon him. The
fire-damp is lighter than air, and floats
above it in the mine chambers. To
keep as much as possiblein the area of
respirable air. the "penitent, as the
man was called. because of the re-
semblance of his dress to that of q
religious order of the Catholic Church.
cyawled on the ground, bearing before
him long pole with lighted tape on
the end. As he dragged his way along.
alone in the poisonous mazes of the
mine, his taper came in contact with
the explosive gas. and defamation after
defamation followed one another until