The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-06-17
HORROR In A COAL MINE.
THIRrY-FoUR MEN KILLED BY AN
EXPLOSION OF FIRE-DAMP.

1uSuoS Au-A nero w no huen65 TO
Save His Comrades Causes the
Explosion.
DUNBAR. PA, Juhe l6.-This morning at
1l:l0 O'Clock an explosion shook the miners
dwelling on the Hill farm In Fayette county,
near this place, and hundreds of affrighted
persons, who knew the sound too well,
feared another mine disaster, and reasoned
far too well. In a moment the fearful news
had spread that the Hill farm mines, owned
by Philadelphia parties, had exploded. The
low-browed hill from which the slope was
entered shook from mouth to pit, and scores
OF mining houses shook for moment and
then poured out their frenzied inmates by
hundreds.
A RUSH FOR THE PIT.
A rush was made to the mouth of the pit,
but ingress was impossible, for smoke In
great volumes was issuing forth. Fifty-two
miners had gone to work this morning and
were ia the slope when the explosion occur
red. or the hfty-two eighteen were In the
left heading and thirty-four in the right
heading. Those in the left heading got out
all right. The others were cut off and not
one escaped. Fire damp exploded by an
accidental spark from miners lamp was
the cause OF the disaster.
ENTERING THE DEATH PIT.
At o'clock this morning the gang turned
In at the mines, the smaller gang drifting
off to the left. while the larger some thirty
five in number, drifted to the right and de-
scended some 800 feet from the surface and
at least mile from the opening. These
two drifts are connected. but the connection
is from the main stem, half mile from the
entrance. The mine, it seems, had
enn1nUhat tPn NIT ~
water, and an air shaft had been drilled
from the surface to the juncture of the
right and left shafts, where the water
seemed to be most abundant. As the miners
branched off from this part they knew that
an air hole had been drilled there that had
not yet been broken in the mine, but they
did not know that the shaft was TO be
broken in to-day.
CAUGHT IN A FLOOD.
A miner named Kerwin had been left in
the right drift. near where that branch
Joined the miae's exit and In the course of
his iabors broke into the perpendicular
shaft. The moment this was broken into a
food of water gushed out, and Kerwin and
man named Landy, standing by, yelled
out for some one TO save the men In the
right drift, as the water was pouring
down hill In stream and he
feared they would be drowned. Young
David Hayes, who had seen the affair,
leaped forward at the call and turned down
the left drift in a deluge OF water Co warn
his endangered comrades below. Just as no
passed the air shaft that had been broken
into the rush Of the waters had changed to
the ugly roar of flood which blanched the
cheeks of the men who stood behind and
toward the light.
THE DEADLY FIRE-DAMP.
The flow of water had changed to a
deadly volume of fire-damp, and as young
Hayes swung by the shaft a blazing light
flashed through the shaft, from end TO end,
1t seemed. The daring youth carried an
open-burner miners lamp in his hat and he
had hardly taken a step beyond the roaring
shaft when the spark ignited the reservoir
of the deadly fluid fre-damp that had
already accumulated, and he sank corpse
near the men whom he had hoped to save
and whom he certainly doomed. In an
instant an unquenchable fire sprang up in
the nine-foot vein just between the main en-
trance and on the right drift, forever shutting
in the thirty-two men imprisoned there.
Poor old David Hayes. father Of the mis-
taken hero, driven mad by the fate of his
son, dashed into tho sulphurous smoke and
strangling flre-damp, only to fall blindly by
the side of his son, and to be drawn out an
hour later, with James s. Hearn, both
recognized only by their wives. The fire,
famed by the air from the main drift and
from the fatal shaft itself, soon sprung into
an awful conhagration.
WALLED IN BY FLAME.
The miners from the left drift escaped,
blackened and bruised, but safe, and they
tell a fearful story Of the scene. Just be-
yond the blazing coal on the right could be
seen score of terrible faces walled in Dy
the flame. No man could pass and live.
1VflIfpnr hap do ~ or ant
ing on tho outside. and Clerk Cook of the
mine, with Mine Inspector Keaghley,
headed party of one hundred, who entered
the main shaft, and after cropping on for
quarter Of mile at least, were driven back
again aud again by the deadly gas, only to
recover breath for a moment and again
plunge in. They finally came upon two
bodies and they were brought to the open
ing Of the mine. They proved to be those
of Shearn and Hayes. the elder.
NO OTHER BODIES RECOVERED.
The volunteer corps worked steadily from
noon until late tonight, with no result but
the two dead above named, and each trip
but brought deeper despair to those above,
and showed that there was no hope and no
one alive below. The corps of 100 was
changed again and again as each exhausted
squad staggered to the outer air, but all in
vain. One man who had entered several
times finally, from sheer exhaustion, fell
into the open pit, and was drawn
out, fatally wounded. At midnight smoke
and gas from the right shaft poured
up the main exit In broken volume, and
after trials almost beyond human en-
durance, the rescuing party gave up all
hope Of recovering their comrades bodies
from that entrance and turned their atten-
tion to the Ferguson mine, one and half
miles away. At this hour they are striving
to penetrate from that mine but flames and
smoke balk their every effort.
ALL DOUBTLESS DEAD.
The universal and unwilling verdict from
old miners about the shaft is that the en-
tombed men have either been killed outright
by the explosion or later by suffocation.
The latter seems to be more probable, at
least In part, as sounds were heard from
the entombed men as late as O'Clock this
afternoon. These grew weaker and weaker,
however, and half an hour later even the
most hopeful of the rescuers could hear
nothing but his own heart throbs. The
men say that had they known the shaft
was to be broken in to-day they would
never have entered the mine, as either
water or gas would surely have followed,
since In these regions gas always comes from
the upper shale. The owners, however, and
in fact some of the men themselves, say
it was an accident, pure and simple, that
oOf1id nathan m va hoar avnfdad or atona1