The Elk Mountain pilot., 1900-04-24
PERILS OF MINERS.
GASES, DUST, FALLING ROCK
AND FLOODING
Are the Chief Dangers That Constantly
Menace Them-Some Deplorable Dis-
asters Due to Cnrelessness - Mines
Worked Close to River Beds

nearly fifty persons persisted, draws
attention to the perilous conditions I'M
der which the miner works in the
gloomy chambers of the earth. The
great perils against which the miner
has to contend are gases, coal dust,
water and falling rock In all coal
mines there are three deadly gases.
Fire damp chemically is carburetted
hydrogen. 1t exudes from the assures
and pores of the coal. Mixed with air
in the proportion of nine-tenths air to
one-tenth fire damp, the gas explodes
with terrific force the instant that
flame touches it. After damp, black
damp or choke damp is mainly car
bonic acid gas, product of the COM
bustion of the fire damp, and it comes
also from the calculations of the min
ers and the mules. 1t suffocates.
White damp results from the explosion
of gunpowder used in blasting coal.
This gas supports combustion, but If
there is 1 per cent of it in the air it
will kill in a short time Men have
been found dead from inhaling white
damp, while their lights were burning
brightly. Another explosive agent
which some experts consider to be
more powerful and deadly than any
of these gases is coal dust The more
lively the currents of air sent
through the mines for ventilating
purposes the more of this dust is dis
lodged from its resting places and
mixed with the air, ready to explode
at spark. With a great change in
the character of mine labor in recent
years has come an increased difficulty
in protecting life. In the old days the
Pennsylvania miners were mostly
English, Welsh, Irish and Americans
Now they are mostly Huns. Poles and
the like. whose intelligence is little
more than that of the mules who work
beside them.
In the other kinds of mine disas-
tiers, flooding and caving in of the
mines, the cause usually may be found
in human greed. In the desire to get
out more coal in mine that perhaps
is nearly worked out, the pillars of
coal that support the roof of the ex-
cavatlon are robbed, and no timbers
at all, or at best insufficient timbers.
are placed in to hold up the enormous
weight. By and by there is a mighty
collapse, and many men are caught
on the further side of the fall. there
to die slowly and in agony in their
crypts Walls and roofs of the exca-
walton, too, may be robbed till. with
laundering rush, the water from an
abandoned working on the other side
of the seam pours in, and the news
paper headlines the next morning
say, Drowned Like Rats in Hole"
Many mines extend near, or even un-
der, the bed of rivers, and carelessness
or worse some day has its reward. In
1898, and for two years before, the
Mansfield iron mine, in Irons county,
Mich, ran under the Michagamme
river. One night the supporting tim
bers gave way and the bottom of the
river fell into the mine. Twenty
eight men were caught, and in a few
minutes the river flowed peacefully
over their corpses on its way to Me-
nominee.
Some of the anthracite mines of
Pennsylvania are within 100 feet of
rivers and others are worked as near
as that to old mines now filed with
water. In parts of the region the
charts showing where bodies of water
lie in abandoned shafts have been
lost, or are untrustwcrthy, and there
is constant fear lest a boring strike
one of these subterranean lakes and
let in flood that will drown every
man. mule and mouse in the mine. To
guard against this miners for many
years have used bore that reaches
25 or 80 feet. Then. if water is struck,
the men have chance to escape be-
fore the water can enlarge the orifice
big enough to overwhelm them. 1t is
said that soon after this bore came
into general use the miners in one
mine reported to the mine boss that
they had reasons to believe their
workings were close to big body of
water The charts were consulted and
they did not show he presence of
water in the neighborhood. One morn
ing the miners started to return to
work and found the mine flooded. They
had run their galleries for 100 feet
parallel to big lake, with only
thin shell of coal between them and
certain death. Carelessress on the
part of miners is responsible for many
disasters An instance OF this kind
occurred at Plymouth, Pa. The fore
man, Joshua Golightly, one day took
a naked lamp into a mine, contrary to
the rules and customs, and five men
were killed and many injured by the
explosion. A lighted fuse used by
miners in blasting down coal in the
Vulcan mine, near New Castle, Col,
fired the gas in new room in that
mine in February, 1896, and the ex-
plosion killed more than 40 men. In
January, 1892, George Lowry, a miner,
fired a blast in mine in McAllister,