The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-01-26
FIRE DAMg
 DEALsDEATH Mine Horror in PennSyl- ' vania. PROBABLY 1So ARE DEAD Allegheny Coal Company owner of the Property. Scene is at Cheswyck, Near Pitts
 burg-one Man Brought from
 the snaft and Is Still


 eAect lndL many were ahSe was ruosAS suaLIereu at I:-o wuen the pvay or oei- wyn Iayior Was brought Lo Lne suriace, A1e nau eviusntiy Deen uead Tor seveia aA uvuIs ana now nvpes Tor the other hn- prisviIeu uLen nave Deen apanuoneu. 1aie escuers are Deine brought out coalsu WLLn ice, oCencneu to lle shln ana uhapAc Lv wax. 1ney report Lhat ueau are scdS- Lereo one aDuve the otner as lnlch as pane needles. W ater is fast pouring inlo Lne mIne, covering tne corpses WRh a snroud ot Ice ana making Ine work or rescue almost impossible. Atter-damp IS collecting in quantities.
 Pitsburg, Jan. 25.-From all that can De gathered at a late hour tonight be- tween loU and iS0 men are iying dead Ill the headings and passageways of the harwick Mine of the Allegheny Coal Company at Cheswyck, the result Of territic explosion today. Cage after cage has gone down into the mine and come up again. but only three miners of all those that went down to work this morn ing have been brought to the surface.
 One man Is Adolph Gunia and he is still alive but in a semi-conscious condition at the temporary hospital at the rude school house on the hillside above the mine. George Waltman, tipple man, died of his injury.
 In addition to the miners who were at work when the explosion occurred, It is now believed by practically all of the men of the rescue party who have come up the 220 foot vertical shaft for @ warming and a breathing spell, that Selwyn Taylor, the Pittsburg mining engineer. who plotted the mine and who was the first to reach the bottom after the explosion, may alSo be among the list of dead. n Occurred in Morning. ' The explosion occurred at S:20 o'clock this morning and tie first warning was the sudden rumble nnderground and then sheet of flame followed up the deep shaft. Both mine cages WeFs husiaA through the tipple twenty feet above the landing stage and the three men on the tipple were thrown to the ground. A mule was thrown nigh above the shaft and fell dead on the ground. The injured men were brought at once to this city, where two of them have died.
 As soon as the rumble of the explosion was heard and the crash at the pit mouth startled the little village, the wives and children of the men below rushed to the scene of the disaster, but to gain no en- couragement There was no way to get into the deep workings. The cages that let the men into the mines and brought them out again when the days work was done, were both demolished.
 All day long there was jam of wait ing women and children waiting about the mouth of the shaft. There were calls for assistance and for surgical aid from the men in charge of the mine. but 1t was not until o'clock this afternoon that the first attempt at rescue was made. This was a failure as the two men who volun- teered were driven back by foul air.
 Shortly after o'clock Selwyn Taylor and one of his assistants signalled for the engineer to lower them into the shaft. Taylor is still down there. Three times cf- forts have been made to reach him, but so far without avail Thomas Wood, one of the first of the rescue party hauled to the surface, told his story of his trip through the mine. He said:
 One of Recuers Talks.
 'T was with Taylor and we clambered over three or four falls. Taylor laid out the mine and seemed to know the way. There was one man alive at the foot of the shaft. He was sent up and then we took the mule path into the south level. We saw two men who were alive and notified those back of us and then went on. We passed the third, fourth and fifth headings and through an overdrift into the air shaft. I began to feel dizzy and sick and then saw Taylor stagger and fall. His lantern went out. We tried to lift him up, but could not carry him up and mRde my own way to safety"
 F. w. Cunningham, the mine inspector of the fourteenth district reached Har- wick about 7:30. When seen by an Asso- ciated Press reporter just after his ar rival he said:
 'I went to Greensburg to inspect mine this afternoon and when reached homo I fOnnd a hlnOh of faloora taIl of this disaster. The mine where the explosion took place was inspected, think. about the first of December. There was some gas in there then, but I did not consider the mine dangerous" The last inspection blank hanging on the nail in the mine company's office is dated July F, 1903, but 1t Is believed that a later report had been torn off.
 Rescue Party of Twenty. An additional party of twenty has just gone down. Three of the rescuers. Becker, Smith and Walkernertt, when they returned to the surface declared that in their opinion all in the mine outside of the rescuers are dead, including Taylor, the engineer. H. F. Hutchinson who gave out the lamps to the miners before they went to work in the pit this morning said:
 At 7;30 o'clock at the time when the
  supposed to be at work at the mine. I had given out between 1s0 and 190 lamps, which was one lamp to a man and not one lamp has been returned"
 There is light In every cottage in the little hamlet above the pit mouth There Is still a crowd about the mouth of the shaft, but 1t will probably be hours be- fore the full extent of the catastrophe is known.
 A Ray of Hope. The first ray of hope that any of the men have escaped the tremendous con cussion of the explosion, came at 6 O clock when Adolph Ginna was brought to the surface still living. The explosion occurred at S:2O o'clock this morning at the bottom of one of the shafts. probably caused by fire damp. It was o'clock this afternoon before 1t was possible to make the first attempt at rescue. Albert North and Jack McCann, one of