Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-02-25
THE RESCUED FIVE.
Some Further Particulars of the
IeanesviIle Miracle.
CONDITION OF THE UNFORTUNaI les.

Four of Them Gaining Strength. But One
Seemingly Notwithstanding Facts
About the Condition of the Mine After
the Disaster-A Fearful Air Pressure
for Men to Live Inflow Four Others
Lost The Lives by Building a Fire
How the Men Were Found.
GAINESVILLE, Pa, Feb 25-"Praise God
from Whom All Blessings Flow" was
sung as il was never sung before at
O'Clock yesterday morning by company
blackened miners who had just issued
| from the mouth of the GAINESVILLE mine
with the most marvellous story the bowels
OF the earth ever gave forth. They sang
| the glad tidings of resurrection, for
never did men look upon a miracle more
strange than seemed the rescue of COM
rades many days incurred as dead The
records of human endurance contain moth
ing that can match the experience of the
five men Tow being tenderly nursed back
| to life and strength.
Five Pitiful Human Wrecks
They are five pitiful wrecks of human
beings as they lay stretched upon impro-
! vised beds in the town hall, which has
| been turned into a hospital, but they still
live, and the medical men. who do not
/ cease to marvel over the fact that life is
| still in them. say that they will soon be
! able to tel as we'll As words can the story
of their sufferings. For nineteen DAYS
and eight hours these five men were en-
tombed, practically without food or
drink, 60 feet deep and three-quarters of
mile from the mouth OF the mine, in a
| hole three feet wide and three high For
air to brea he they had only what was i'm
| prisoned with them, and that under tie
pressure OF an immense weight of water
given the force of four atmospheres.
! The story of Disaster Retold.
The disaster which overlook them and
score or more of their comrades oc-
CURED at IL O'Clock on the morning of the
| 4th inst. There was a sudden rush of
water into the mine from long aban-
/ doned shalt. Nobody knows the cause
/ It Is conjectured that the wol kers had
! gone nearer the abandoned mine than was
suspected and that a miners pick had
| pierced the barrier and started the flood.
| At all events. the waters poured in with a
/ sudden deluge, which in five minutes.
/ had filled more than 200 feet vertically
above OF the lower levels of the mine All
the men in that drift and its branches
! got warning in time and escaped to the
bottom of the slope and up in the car
The Flight for safety.
But the miners in the opposite drift
were cut of and could only retreat before
the advancing flood higher into the laby-
rinth. The waters followed them up un-
til the main drift was entirely filled 1t
was into the little drifts, the highest
points in the depths of the mine that such
miners as were not caught by the flood
and whose escape by the shaft was cut off
| Immediately fled The water in the mine
mounted 50 high that in the main shaft it
reached fully seventy feet above that of
! the impriS oned men. Their prison was
OF course air tight. The air confined there
! prevented the invasion OF the food TO the
very end OF the pockets where the men
! took refuge, and mining engineers say the
! head OF water was sufficient to ouadruple
the normal atmospheric pressure.
Work of Clearing the Mine.
When the situation was fully under
stood by the managers of the mine it was
| at once considered impossible that any
one below could have remained alive he
! yond q few brief hours at most. Never.
| theless, the work of clearing the mine was
/ undertaken with as much energy as though
! the lives OF all the missing men, eighteen
| in number. depended upon il. When men
| could enter the mine several bodies were
! found, all drowned, and it was concluded
| that all had died in the same manner.
Such was the general conviction until Sun
| day, when penetrating still farther the
! explorers found the bodies of four men
| who had no. apparently been very long
! dead
Their Fatal Bad Judgment
As it proved, these four had better
chance of surviving than the five who
were rescued Monday night Their own
bad judgme ut cost them their lives. They
had built fire OF boards and splinters.
The fire consumed what remained of oxy-
gen in the ar. and the four men persisted
after several days of hunger of asphyx-
| iation. Their fate is peculiarly distress
ing because their supply of air in volume
and quantity of oxygen was considerably
| larger than that of the five men still
! living. On Monday four more bodies
were found, but they had persisted by
| drowning Only five more of the eigh-
| teen missing remained 20 be accounted for.
! and only two or three of the most distant
points remained TO be visited
Rescue of the Missing Five.
And Monday nights brought rescue to
these. They had crawlej into a heading
or passage which had been partially ex-
caEated from breast to breast L How to
get them out was problem. The only
way was for miner to lie upon his back
! take one of the sufferers in his arms and
slide over the rough path to the bottom.
| This was done, and Yesterday morning
| the remainder of the journey was accom-
| piished, and the sufferers once more
breathed the free air of the outside The