Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-05-22

ened to cave. and thousands of tons of coal
would be lost. At Pittston Superintendent
Langan started on Sunday night with
sixty-five men to place massive timbers
under the affected roof. hoping to avert the
threatened destruction. So awful was the
noise and so near did death appear in those
trembling passages that seven men, Super
intendent Langan's among them, re-
fused to work and went back. The super
intendent and the fifty-eight men labored
for an hour or so. then suddenly many tons
of rock and coal fell. and in an instant ma
ture had constructed for them an impene
trable sepulcher. Whether they We're in
stantly crushed to death, shut in and suffo-
Gated slowly starved will probably never
be known.
The accident at Plymouth, Pa. was
caused in a like manner. AS may well be
imagined. the conflict between hope of res
cue and fear of death, in the hearts of the
victims friends, is terrible. Hope died
slowly at Pittston. and it is the same else
where. This is due to the absolute uncer-
tainty. Some argue that the victims may
be hemmed in an open chamber with a
plentiful supply Of air and water, and
quote the well-known cases, where. at
Sugar Notch number of men lived Two
weeks, eating a mule entombed with them,
and were finally rescued: where at Jeanes-
vile, Pa, a rescue was effected after nine
teen days, in which the men had nothing
to eat except the leather of their boots
owing to their ignorance the life-sustain!nG
tish-oil in their lamps was untouched-and
again, of the two men who at Nanticoke
were rescued after sitting astride a log in
flooded workings for nine days with moth
ing to eat. With these instances of re-
covery from the hand of death, after per-
sistent attempt at rescue, 1t is hard for
friends of entombed men to believe that all
hope is gone. and frequently-aS at FIT
ston-as late as six weeks after the acci-
dent they implore the mine officials TO Keep
up the effort.
Other accidents affect only the mine
and the miners. Caves affect the surface,
and many property owners In this region
have cause to regret the day when they
bought land which was undermined be-
cause it was cheap. Recently a large sec
ton of street at Wyoming, Pa. went down.
with several buildings, and instances are
numerous of houses being swallowed up by
the greedy earth. Of cattle engulfed and
suffocated. People are sometimes caught,
but not often, for the earth generally sinks
slowly. and there is usually plenty of time
to escape. There have been instances OF
quick settlement: two close to this city
were especially interesting. A peddler was
driving slowly along the road leading from
this city to Palms. Pa, when his horse sud-
denly sank. dragging the front wheels of
the wagon after him. When the driver re-
covered from his surprise and terror the
wagon body was on the edge Of hole
thirty feet deep. Some time later near the
same place, an old woman was sitting near
her doorstep Smelling peas. Her husband
coming over the hill saw her suddenly drop
out of, sight. ran up and found her busy
picking up her scattered peas forty feet be-
low the surface. She was uninjured and
was quickly rescued.
In February portion Of the tracks along
the line of the Central railroad Of New Jer-
sey two miles from here was sucked down