The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-03-25
DOWN in A COAL MINE.
Some of the Impressions Which a
Journey Underground Leaves Up-
on the Observing Novice.
Hazleton Letter, New York Sun.

Hazleton Letter, New York Sun.
To the novice a trip down a coal
mine shaft is an exciting experience.
The candidate for the experience of
visiting a coal mine for the first time
by way of the perpendicular shaft that
leads to the Cimmerian depths must
not pause at the edge of the chasm to
consider the matter. If he stops to
ponder over the possibility that the
rope that slowly unwinds at the sur
face as the car and platform are low
cred through the darkness may part
before the journey is fairly begun, or
over the fact that the bottom of the
shaft is perhaps a quarter of mile
below, and fingers to calculate the pos
sible consequences, the chances are that
he will never see the inside of a coal
mine. If he really desires the expert
ence, he must step in offhand and i'm
agine that he is going to a picnic.
There will be no need of his shutting
his eyes to escape the sight of possible
terrors on the way down, for although
the shaft may be filed with such, it is
nothing he will see of them with his
eyes wide open. The only thing he may
he is leaving, and silver dollar will
be bigger than that before he is landed
amid the CRIME and gloom at the bot
tom.
One who is nervous in an elevator
descending it's shaft in one of New
Yorks tall buildings, surrounded by
upholstery and light, and with the
monotony of the trip, short as it is
compared with one down a coal mine
shaft, varied by frequent stops and
getting out and coming in of occu-
pants, would simply die on journey
to collierys depths. Visitors who
have the courage to make the trip are
not many. They may go to the col
liery firmly intent on descending the
shaft but those who change their minds
when the clash and clangor and Whir
of the machinery, the sitting dust and
the hurrying, sooty workmen surround
and fit about them, are of the major
ity. Some visitors who have kept their
courage to the sticking place until they
have entered the car lose it when the
| descent into the ebOn depths begins,
and cover down on the bottom of the
car motionless from fear, loss of con-
sciousness sometimes resulting.
The space is narrow in a mine shaft.
and impenetrable darkness gives it the
| appearance of being more contracted
| than it is. The attendants lamp is but
a firefly's twinkle in the gloom. Water
| filters through the rocky walls and pat
| ters upon you, like uncomfortable No
vember rain from dripping caves, as
| the car passes deliberately down
| through the gloom that hedges it about.
| The oscillations of the rope that holds
! your life by it's strands are painfully
| apparent. Even the fact that the
miners make this trip twice day,
laughing and talking and humming
snatches of folk song--but never whist
! ling; to whistle in a mine will fetch
the worst of luck, they say-fails TO
| remove all thought of danger from the
mind of a stranger. There may be SEN
sations of greater happiness and re-
lief than those he feels when the cal
| rests on the bottom, but it is doubtful
Every one who can read knows what
A coal mine is. One is like another
| the galleries crossing one another in
| all directions like the streets of town
with many turnings-a black and deer
city, a city of coal. Some of the gal
leres are long and wide and well ven
tilated; others are low, narrow and
tortuous, with the air suspiciously fou
and charged with danger. The lader
cars, trundling along the dingy tram
| ways toward the foot of the shaft
pass the empty ones going back into
the depths for other burdens. The
noise of blasts, the smell of powder
the rumble here and there of falling
coal, the glimmer of lamps whose fee,
| ble rays barely outline the ghouls 81
forms of the miners at their toll the
sound OF water pouring from the many
subterranean veins sundred by the picl
and drill-these are the sights ant
sounds that surround the life minel