The Corvallis times. (Corvallis, Or.) 1888-1909, 1902-07-19
A CHAMBER OF DEATH
DEATH LIST WILL EXCEED THREE
HUNDRED.


Company's Rolling Mill
Mine-Few Escape 5
Miles From Main
/ Entrance.
Johnstown, Pa, July 1O.-What
in all human possibility was the
greatest mine disaster in the histo-
ry of the Pennsylvania coal fields
filled nearly 900 homes with terror
today and overcast the city with a
gloom comparably with that only
occasioned by the great Johnstown
flo2d Of over thirteen years ago.
Somewhere between loo and 400
miners are entom bed in the great
rolling-mill shaft of the Cambria
Iron and Steel Company. beneath
the foothills, five miles west of John
stown, as the result of an explosion
that occurred shortly before noon.
! The number is disputed, but how
ever many there are, there is little
doubt that all is the shaft are dead.
Inside the mine fire is adding to
the horrors of the explosion, and
smoke is slowly coming from the
entrances. The rescuing parties
have abandoned all attempts to use
the Westmont drift, and are devot-
ing all their efforts from the Mill
Greek shaft. at the other end.
At midnight the first rescuing
party returned to the Mill Creek
shaft, after penetrating over two
miles into the workings. DR.. J. B.
Lowman, one of the party, said
that they had passed over twenty
five dead bodies. The party devot-
ed its efforts to saving the living,
aid carried to them large supplies
of oxygen. It is being supplied now
to about thirty unconscious men,
and the physicians hope to save
many of them.
Up to midnight no one has been
taken alive or dead from the ''Klon-
dike,'' the portion of the mine in
which the explosion occurred.
There are probably Zoo men entomb-
ed, and probably all are dead.
At 1:3o o'clock the dead discover
ed numbered sixty. and more
were being found at every step of
the rescuers. 49,
Officials Of the company oper-
ating the mine assert that there
were four hundred men atwork aud
that two hundred and fifty escaped.
Those of the rescued who are able
to talk say that there were GOO men
in the long black hole which pene-
trates the earth for a distance of
five OR six miles, and that net more
than 15o have been accounted for.
At II o'clock tonight four vic
Tins were brought to the surface
from the Klondike section. DR..
John B. Lowman who came up with
the men, said he passed twenty
five dead bodies, some of them in
sitting postures.
Only eight bodies have been tax
en- out. The rest are hemmed in
or crushed into shapeless masses
beneath thousands of tons of coal
and rock displaced by the explo-
sion. If any are ewyet alive the res
cuers are prevented from reaching
them by the flames in some sections
aud the black damp in others.
RescuiDg parties composed of de-
termied men wrought up to a pitch
OF desperate courage by the exciting
events of the day have endeavored
in vain to penetrate the various
shafts, but none of them have sue
ceeded in accomplishing anything
beyond the recovery of a few of the
bodies Of those who dropped in their
tracks while fleeing toward dayligh.
Bratticing, tanning and every
| plan and device known to miners
for enabling them to penetrate
shafts filled with black damp have
been resorted to in vain, and SO
complete has been their defeat that
nearly all have now given up hope.
Half-hea rted efforts to accom-
pllsh something are still belug
made, but with prs ctically no hope
of success.
It was not until news came into
the city that many miners had es-
capped at the Mill Creek opening,
between four and five miles from
the city, that it was known that all
had not perished.
About a hundred miners manag-
ed to escape by way of the Mill
Creek entrance. They said that
they had left hundreds of dead men
in the mines, and told terrible sto-
ries of crawling over the dead bod.
les Of their comrades.