The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1895-02-14
TRAGEDY OF A WESTERN MINE,

TRAGEDY OF A WESTERN MINE,
Cs.o Dead Men Disinterred After Fiftees
Years-The Unheeded Warning.
In Butte County there is a quartz
nine which has been abandoned for
many years, says the San Francisco
Chronicle. Only the oldest residents OF
the vicinity remember the names OF the
locaters and scarcely trace of the
shaft and buildings remains to mark
the spot. The ledge was discovered
away back in the early days, when
quartz first attracted the notice of the
pros pactors; when many worthless
hedges were worked because the miners
had not yet learned how to read the
value of such ore by the minerals in it,
its location, dip and contact with other
formations. The Sunset ledge was
small, finty and absolutely worthless,
but the men who discovered it thought
| it worth development. They put down
. shaft 100 feet in depth in wet and
.treacherous ground, and they used no
iitimbers. Then they let contract to
: two men, Cornishman and an Irish
Elan, to construct a tunnel 100 feet IN
!; ength from the bottom of the shaft.
! Sometimes untimbered ground will
stand apparently firm and safe for
time, and then, with no perceptible
cause, suddenly get shaky and fall or
close in. This was just what occurred
at the Sunset mine. The two men in.
the tunnel had almost finished their
contract and were "squaring up the
face" of the tunnel, when one OF the
men employed on the surface was low.
cred rapidly, ran to them and told them
to leave the mine instantly because the
shaft was closing in. Why the men
refused in the face of certain horrible
Death to heed the warning is a mys-
tery. The messenger begged and
threatened, but they were obdurate.
They laughed at him, told him to sit
down and smoke a pipe with them, and
said they would leave the tunnel only
when they had finished her up in
shape" Perhaps they imagined the
man was playing joke on then, or
that it was scheme to get them to
leave the mine before their contract
was fulfilled. At any rate they re-
fused to leave the mine, and the man
who warned them returned to the sur
face only just in time to escape the
fate Of the men below. The shaft,
with roar and rumble, closed in,
! md they were entombed.
| No effort was made to rescue the
buried men. It was impossible to save
them if they were not killed by the
cave, and it was supposed that the tun-
ael had also collapsed. To sink shaft
100 feet through treacherous ground
would take long time, even in these
days, when all the ''modern appliances"
for such work are at our disposal. The
nine was abandoned. Fifteen years
went by. The story Of the mine and
the buried men became an old one.
There names were forgotten. They
we're like men who go down to the sea
IN ships and perish in sight of their
homes. Their friends know that some
;where in the sea their bones are bleach
ling, somewhere in great sepulcher
|lpon which they may look, but into
which they cannot see.
Fifteen years after the caving in OF
the mine some prospectors overran the
locality. They were told the story Of
The Sunset ledge, and they went to its
i:roppings and to the dump where the
shaft had been and tested the ore they
Hound there. Whether they found any,
gold Is not known, but they found
;,omething which encouraged them.
Perhaps they were not well versed In
,uartz, and believed that any ledge
would pay if developed. They resolved
70 reopen the mine. Itwas their opin-
ion, they said, that the Sunset COM
pany had not put their shaft down in
/ the right place OF sunk it deep enough.
!They (the new company would choose
i, better spot, sink their shaft much
deeper and tap the ledge on the pay
shoot. Old men who heard Of 1t shook
Their heads and prophesied a failure;
hey said no luck could come from dis
I!urbing dead mems bones, but the new
company began and finished their
shaft, hoping and expecting to strike
the ledge where judgment had led
hem to believe the pay shoot was.
| One day when they fired a blast thert
fas a rush Of water down the incline
and the miners were driven out. After
much trouble and expense and larger
pump was put in and the middle
cleared, and the cause Of the sudden
aow was explained. The upraise OF
The new company had entered the old
tunnel Of the Sunset company about
Twenty feet from it's face. And there,
On heap of rock, leaning against the
walls, were two grinning skeletons.
The bones Of the contractors who had
,at there, grirring at their fate and for
fifteen years patiently waiting to be
found, were removed from the mine
and given decent burial. The mine
was again abandoned and will probabl'
>ever be again opened.
Learning by Sight.
| Danton, the celebrated caricaturist,
had a wonderful power Of modelling