The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-05-19
PERILS OF THE COAL MINE.
DEADLY IMPURE OF THE C1VE-
 IN.
Heroic Attempts to Rescue Entombed
 Miners.

Miners.
 Accounts of the terrible explosion in 8
 Utah coal mine on Tuesday have
 brought to mind forcibIy the precariouS
 existence that the miner leads beneath
 the earth But of all the accidents
 which threaten the life of the anthra-
 cite coal miner none is more feared
 than the deadly cave-in. It is far more liable to cause death than explosions or floods, runaway cars or falls down the shaft Dozens and dozens of men are crushed to death every year by it, and the reports of the mine inspectors show that a large majority of the fatal acci- dents of the year are due to 1t. Wit ness the great accident at the twin shaft, Pittston, Pa, a few years ago, when fifty-nine men were shut in or crushed to death; and the fall at No Il Plymouth, Pa, when thirteen men were killed. None of these victims were ever found, nor is there much probability of any trace of them being discovered.
 Sudden and horribly fatal as they are, the caves give warning of their ap- proach A short time ago the writer was in an affected gangway, There was constant and menacing noise, which is almost indescribabe It was like the distant murmur of a thunder storm or the deep rumble of far-away breakers. For hundreds of feet above and around, the rock and coal was "working" It was moving and rolling and crushing itself, grooming under the immense weight it bore staggering mo- + fr~ tnito nd eriI- -i,aor : in every fiber that the remorseless load would very soon totally obliterate the gangway in which we stood. Massive timbers, eighteen inches in diameter, were being crushed and splintered, bulged and cracked the car tracks were distorted in a hundred different ways, and all the time, from roof and sides, little splinters of rock and coal were flying with sufficient force to cut the hands or face. At points the roof had sunk two or three feet, and at others the sides of the gangway were bulged in, and threatened at any moment to burst, like overripe fruit. Big mine rats, wise as the miner, were scutting to a safe place, and we soon followed their example. A minute in the gang way seemed as long as an hour on the surface.
 But with all the warning it gives, the cave to often proves to be the death bed and grave of the miner who is rash enough to try to save for his company what nature is retaining as her own. So it was in the two great accidents previously mentioned Valuable cham bers of the mine threatened to cave, and thousands of tons of coal would be lost. At Pittston Superintendent Langan started on a 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 ap- pear in those trembling passages that seven men. Superintendent Langan's son among them, refused to work and went back. The superintendent and the fifty-eight labored for an hour or so then suddenly many tons of rock and coal fell, and in an instant nature had constructed for them an impenerrabe sepulcher. Whether they were instant ly crushed to death, shut in and suffo- cated, or slowly starved, will probably never be known.
 For weeks men as brave as the fifty nine labored at the work of rescue, a great but unavailing struggle. Torn, shaken and trembling from the shock of the first fall, which dragged upon the other portions of the mine like massive chains drawn by monster, working af- ter working collapsed. hour after hour, for some days, before it ali settled qui- etly, and the dangers of the rescuers were fully as great as those the en- tombed men had confronted. There was but one practicable way of getting at the victims, and that was down a long slope at the foot of which it was expected the unfortunates would be found. Four hundred feet was clear space; the remaining four hundred was blocked to within a few inches of the roof by the fallen masses of rock It was through these four hundred feet that the rescuers had to force their way Volunteers were numerous, the most able mining experts in the region di- rected the operations, and the work went on day and night, At first good progress was made, and then, as they advanced foot by foot, the danger and difficulties increased. Some days they would gain twenty or thirty feet, and then be driven back some distance, only to attack the living mass again with magnificent courage and endurance.
 It was in the midst of this work that the writer saw them. Some ninety feet had been gained through the fall. The whole slope some nine feet in width, had not been cleared, but a narrow passage fou feet wide had been driven through the center of it. This was propped and strengthened by great tim bers, for there was constant danger of the roof coming down. The gas was heavy and safety lamps had to be used, l so the light was dim and uncertain. | The moaning of the mine was still to , be heard and had most weird effect, | as if breasts and gangWays were | for their victims. The men worked in shifts of half a dozen each, ! three hacking and packing al the l "face'' of the fall with their picks and | three shoveling back the debris to oth- CTS behind them, who passed it out in | line Great masses of rock had to be shattered with drill and hammer, for it l was not safe to use powder, and the | was distressingiy low As | soon as one shift became tired another l took it's place, and the work went on. | Inspectors and foremen stood about di- [ recting the work and keeping a careful | eye on the dangerous roof. AS the Wri- | ter watched there was q cry of warning, |