The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-06-30
THE ENT0MBED MINERS
NO HOPE FOR THEM, ILL BELIEVED
 TO BE DEAD.

Mouth of the Mine.
 Wilkesbarre, Pa, June 29.-The situ- ation at the Twin Shaft at Pittston Junction tonight is unchanged
 The company is making every possi ble effort to reach the victims, but there is absolutely no hope that any of them will be recovered alive The friends and relatives of the entombed men have haunted day and night the head of the shaft, hoping against hope that some of the rescuing party may bring up word of cheer.
 The ,rescuing party that went into the shaft this morning returned at 0 clock this evening, and as they jumped from the carriage the foreman said: NO hope of rescue as yet"
 Later on it was learned that the situ- ation inside is changing almost hourly owing to the continuous caVing or 'squeezing," and on this account noth- ing whatever can be told as to when the men can be reached. The rescuing party tonight are working their way to the point where they propose to start digging tomorrow morning. They still continue to timber as they go, and their work is most dangerous. Henry McMillan, inside foreman of the Bar mum mine, who went into the pit this afternoon to make a careful survey, says that in his belief the caving will continue more or less for week. The fall is immense and the progress of the diggers, when they do commence to
 Il T colt of the fall,
 Prominent mine officials from all parts of this section were on the scene to-day discussing the disaster A con ference was held during the day at which reports were made to the effect that the fall is the largest ever known to any miner in this valley. Water has been running into the shaft since yes terday, and to-day the quantity pour ing in increases in volume. It is feared the water has filled the place In which the bodies of the victims are and it will be impossible to remove the bodies from the mine. There are many of the best mining engineers from a dozen of the big companies who are now, as they have been for the past twenty four house, lending all assist ance of labor and advice at the ill-fated twin shaft at Pittstop Junction These all concur in the opinion that there is not one chance in a thousand that one of fhe eighty men in the mine is alive, If any had been spared, they could have before this worked either way out from the end of the caved slope, following the course of the return air-Way. The ho thor oughly, and their arrival at the mouth of the shaft, if they had been able to walk or crawl, would have been simply a matter of few hours. This is proof positive that none of them is left to tell the tale.
 The cave-in is one of the largest, as it has already proved the most horrible in the history of anthracite coal mining. No disaster since the Avondale horror of 1869 has approached 1t. At that time there were 110 men smothered to death from the smoke that drifted down the shaft from the burning breaker To- day at the twin shaft the situation is simply hopeless. The officers of the mine in question will not say this, but they believe it nevertheless, and the of ficers of the other big companies, and especially of the Lehigh Valley, who hold all the maps of the affected work ings do not hesitate to say that none or the men can possibly come out alive.
 A surface area of a half mile wide and mile long is affected by the squeeze, and an engineer of the Lehigh Valley Coal company, walking over the surface this morning, found big cracks nearly a mile away from the shaft. What men may have escaped the crush of falling coal and rock have been suf- located or else drowned, for it is thought that already the waters of the Iackawanna river or the Susquehan- ma, which meet each other above the affected portion, have access to the workings.
 The talk of running a tunnel from the Clear Spring colliery is abandoned, as an explosion would be inevitable if it were attempted.
 At the best, it will take a couple of weeks before they can come upon any of the men, It is 600 feet from the foot of the shaft to the head of the slope. The men are supposed to be about 1,2Oo feet beyond the beginning of the slope. The gangs are working in eight hour shifts of fifty men each and up to noon they hadn't got to within 200 feet of the slope.
 The timbering has been carried 400 feet from the foot of the shaft and it is being done by the cobbing process, this being the ony safe way to get ahead. Instead of standing the timbers along the slope as is usually done they are building cobs like log houses, and about twenty feet square, and fill ing in with rock. This work is very slow. but any man who goes beyond the uoints covered takes his life in his hands. The cobs cannot be built to the head of the slope within forty eight hours. Beyond this point, along the slope, there is a quarter mile of fallen rock and coal that will have to be dug out, and this will be a matter of many days, and more likely weeks.
 When this part of the work is fully under way, bodies may be dug out at almost any point, just as in the case of the Gaylord disaster, where thirteen men met their death in exactly the same way But the tunneling through the debris will be delayed by the opera tions of the timber men, who are plac- ing the cobs as close together as pos sible and another line of them will have to be run from the foot of the shaft to meet the tunnel 300 or 400 feet from the head. This is to protect the