The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1894-09-21


gasping in the daylight. There was
an instant's creak of machinery and
then the landscape, that had been
framed for us by the doorposts of the
shed, disappeared in flash. We were
dropping with extraordinary swiftness
straight into the earth. 1t was q
plunge, fall.
The dead black walls slid swiftly by.
They were a swirling black chaos on
which the mind tried vainly to locate
some coherent thing, some Ineligible
spot. One could only hold fast to the
iron bars and listen to the roar Of this
implacable descent. 1t was journey
that held threat of endlessness.
Then suddenly the dropping plat
form slackened its speed. 1t began to
descend slowly and with caution. At
last, with a crash and jar, it stopped.
Before us stretched an inscrutable
darkness, a soundless place of tangible
loneliness. Into the nostrils came
subtle strong odor of powder smoke,
oil, wet earth.
MINERS AT WORK.
Our guide strobe abruptly into the
gloom. His lamp fared shades of yell
low and orange upon the walls of q
tunnel that led away from the foot Of
the shaft. Before us there was al
ways the curtain of impenetrable night.
We walked on with no sound save the
crunch of our feet upon tho coal dust
on the floor. The sense Of on abiding
danger in the roof was always upon
our foreheads. 1t expressed to us oil
the unmeasrred deadly tons above us.
All at once, far ahead, shone O little
fame, blurred and difficult of loca-
ton. It was tiny, indefinite thing,
like a wisp light. We seemed to be
looking at it through q great fog.
Presently there were two of them.
They began to move to and fro and
danced before us.
After time We came upon two men
crouching where the roof of the pas
sage came near to meeting the floor.
The garments of the men were no more
sable than their faces, and when they
turned heads to regard our tramping
party, their eyeballs and teeth shone
white as bleached bones. 1t was like
the grinning Of two skulls there in the
shadows
But they said "Hello, JIM" to our
conductor. Their mouths expanded in
smiles-wide and startling smiles.
In moment they turned again to
their work. When the lights of ou1
party reinforced their two lamps we
could see that one was busy drilling
into the coal with q long thin bar.
The low roof ominously pressed his
shoulders as he bent at his toll The
other knelt behind him on the loose
Jumps of coal.
We came upon other little low.
rooted chambers, each containing two
men, "miner, who makes the blasts
and his "laborer," who loads the coal
upon the cars and assists the minei
generally.
AT THE MAIN SHAFT.
From this tunnel of our first mine
we went with our guide to the foot o
the main shaft. Here we were il
the most important passage of mine
the main gangway. The wonder o
these avenues is the noise-the crasl
and clatter of machinery as the ele
vator speeds upward with tho loaded
cars and drops thunderingly with tn
empty ones. The place resounds Will
the shouts of mule-boys, and there cal
always be heard the noise ofapproach
ing coal cars, beginning in mild rum
2 bles and then swelling down upon on
in O tempest of sound. In the air
the slow painful throb of the pump
working ut the water which collects il
the depths. There is booming an
= banging and crashing until one won
/. ders why the tremendous walls are no
a wrenched by the force of this uproal
Q And up and down the tunnel there
It riot of lights, little orange point
Ell Pickering and flashing. Miners strid
It in swift and somber procession. Blu
% the meaning of it all is in the dee
% bass rattle of blast in some hide
part Of the nine, 1t is war. It is tn
10 most savage part of oil In the endlei
1t battle between man and nature
J. These miners are grimly in the val
d They have carried the war into place