The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-07-17

I mines.
The dangers that threaten the miner are
many and require eternal vigilance to
even partially avoid. In the coal mines
I there are two dangerous gases, choke
damp, which suffocates, and ire-damp
/ which explodes with fearful violence and
I causes terrible loss of life In the iron
ana copper mines, with which this article
more especially deals, these two gases
are absent and the ventilation is usually
| sutfocated by the dangerous gases gener-
I ated from the dynamite used in blasting
down the ore. The miners are often
manned outright. through premature ex-
| plosions or other accidents coming
| through the use of high explosives. Miss
| ed holes" are fruitful sources of accident
IN these, where the charge of dynamite
! mas failed 20 explode, for any reason, the
removal of the dynamite and the "tamp-
/ ing OF sand placed over il in the drill hole
Is dangerous though necessary opera
| tlon- Miners have had steel drills driven
through their bodies by such explosions,
While others, holding the drill which rest
ed on the dynamite have had both hands
torn off at the wrists, so sudden and so
| terrible Is the power of the deadly giant
powder. The sticks of dynamite are cylln-
/ drical, an inch to an inch and a quarter
/ in diameter and eight inches or so in
/ length, wrapped in Whitley brown oiled pa
/ per. To TIRE these a copper cap and fuse
4 -
These copper caps, barely an inch in length
and quarter of an inch in diameter, eacn
| hold single drop of illuminate of mer-
curry, which is exploded by the fire from
the fuse and in turn fires the dynamite.
A woman at Republic, Mich, picked up
one Of these caps a few weeks ago at a
| mine which had been idle ten years and
attempted to pick the dirt out of il with
hat pin. 1t exploded and the power of the
single drop of illuminate of mercury tore
of her thumb and three fngers-yet many
miners carry these caps about in their
| pockets, lOose-perhaps handful of them
each capable of manning or killing the
| strongest man.
| The greatest danger threatening the iron
or copper miner is the fall of ground,
as the men term the caving of ore or rocks
into the mine. Millions Of dollars are spent
annually by the Michigan mines in tim
bering their underground openings, yet
with all precautions, scores of miners lose
their lives annually under rocks that fall
upon them. Some times many tons Will
fal at once, crushing the men under the
mass like flies and again a single rock, per
haps Of but a few ounces weight, VIII fall
hundreds OF feet down a shaft and strik-
ing some unfortunate upon the head will
kill him as surely as a rife bullet would
I Occasionally a stick of timber or a mine
| drill VIII fall into the shaft and woe be-
tide the men below them. Miners have
| been buried for days under hundreds of
tons of rock and were rescued alive the
rocks having so fallen as to protect them
from the mass above. Not infrequently
parties of miners are cut off by a fan of
/ ground behind them, leaving them with
out food or water in some dark drift or
chamber in the bowels of the earth. 1t is
! qhen that their fellOw-miners show the
stuff they are made of. Cornish, Irish,
Swede of Finn-an of the many national
| tiles employed about the mines-are as d
unit. Questions of nationality and relig-
ion are all forgotten and there is but one
| thought-how TO rescue The imprisoned
men before runger; thirst or another fall
| of ground have killed them. The men
work in relays, the narrow drifts render
/ ing it possible to put but a few men at
one time on the mass of fallen rock
Hammer ana drill, pick ana shovel, the
| men go at the work. Stripped to the WaiS t
| that their great muscles may have freer
/ play, these heroes strike the blows of
giants and lift with their shovels such
! masses OF rock as would seem filter for a
| horse to draw. Not an instant is lost-not
a blow misplaced-not a man but uses the
| last ounce of strength that nature and toll
have given him. Al the end of ten or ff-
| teen minutes the men step to the rear,
| painting, covered with sweat from every
| pore, and throw themselves down upon
the nearest plank or even the rocky floor
| to gasp for breath. The tools do not touch
| the ground-they are taken from tired
| hands by willing workers and the titanic
labor goes on, perhaps for hours maybe
! for days, with never a moments cessation.
| Timbermen tread upon the heels of the
miners and shore up thes openings, for it
not lnfrequently happens that rescuers are
! buried also Beneath the treacherous
rocks. Alive or dead, the work continues
until the last man or body has been re-
moved. 1t is not on record that Michi-
gan miner has ever refused to join res
cuing party, no matter how severe the
toll or how dangerous the work.
Next to falling ground, the miners suf-
! fer most from their own carelessness. Fa-
milarity with the dark openings of the
mine leads TO contempt of their dangers
Many poor fellow has walked into an
| open shaft, to be dashed to death hundreds
or even thousands of feet below. In some
of the deeper mines the men are lowered
and hoisted in cages at vertical shafts
and in especially constructed "slxips,"
| which have seats in tiers, like those al a
| circus, in the incline shafts. At the ma
| jority of mines however the miners are
| supposed to ascend and descend on the
| ladders. Climbing a quarter of a mile Of
/ ladderways after ten hours of hard labor
with pick and shovel is not a pleasant
! task and 1t is not 10 be wondered at that
| the men violate the standing rule of ev-
| are great iron boxes, open at the TOD. run
/ ming on wheels upon the rails resting on
| the footwall of the shaft. Many men have
| lost their lives through stealing rides. At
| the Lake Angelina mine, Ishpeming, some
years ago, one miner of a party of four
working In the stump at the bottom of
the shaft was taken suddenly sick and
started to ride to the surface In the skip.
! Two minutes later a dark object came
| bounding down the shaft and fell at the
| feet Of the three remaining men. One of
them picked it up and with a scream fell
! fainting to the floor. The man who was
riding in the skip had held his head over
its edge where the iron-bound timbers of
an upper level came close TO the opening
of the shaft, and II was his head that his
partner picked up 800 feet below. while
the headless body was dumped in the
shaft-house as the skip was automatically
J reversed at the pocket
Water is the cause of rare but terrible
accidents. In the Detroit mine, at Ish-
peming, ten years ago, the miners were
| forced 10 run for their lives from the con-