Albuquerque citizen. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1907-1909, 1908-01-01

Carthage, n. M, Jan. l-(Special)
ght miners are dead, and six are
ured rs the result OF the explosion
combustibIe dust which wrecked
Bernal mine of the Carthage
el company at Carthage, N. M,
ling the noon hour yesterday.
the dead and injured were mem
s of shift of men who remained
- mice, whje some forty nt''er
lers were at dinner, Ia order to
lode number of charges of
der used in dislodging the coal
ch had been previously drilled
and prepared for mining.
faulty charge of powder. known
a windy shot" caused the explo-
sion.
The first reports of the terrible
disaster, which has turned the holi-
day of New Years in this pretty lit
tie camp into day OF deepest
mourning. were not exaggerated.
The only ray of JOY is the BELIEF
that the injured, although their con-
ditions are serious, will eventually
recover. II is too early yet however,
to say with certainty that all Will
recover from the terrible shock,
which tossed them about the narrow
tunnels Of the mine as though they
were straws caught up in a blast of
wind.
some of them sustained broken
bones while all were severely bruis-
ed and scorched by the hot tongues
of flames that followed the explo-
sion In some instances small stones
were driven with such force by the
combustion of dust that they were
lodged in the bodies of the men and
had to be extracted like bullets, with
a surgeons knife.
The accident was the most terrible
in the history of New Mexico mining.
A cursory examination indicates that
no blame attaches to any one for the
catastrophe. 1t is one of those accl-
dents which miners learn to expect
sooner or later and which it seems
impossible to guard against. Some
times a charge Of powder or of dyna-
mite does not explode as 1t should
but does just the reverse of a blast
ing Instead of exploding with a
sudden and complete force ii simple
"fizzes" like a firecracker and goes
out without eXertng any force eX-
cept just enough to raise cloud of
fine dust highly combustible and eX-
cessively dangerous.
The wind shot" itself is harmless
but terrible explosions follow the
cloud of dust if il ignites as it gener-
ally does.
il was such a shot, 1t is believed,
which caused the tragedy at the Ber-
nal mine here yesterday.
1t Is almost an invariable rule in
all coal-mining camps to take ad-
vantage Of the dinner hour, when
the galleries are comparatively de-
serted. for firing the charges neces-
sary to release the masses of coal,
the loading and shoveling of which
constitutes the subsequent work or
the men on shift.
Many charges are fred, the ex-
plosious often following each other
like a continuous volley, al intervals
of mere fractions OF a second.
Were Firing Shots to Loosen Coal
In the case of the Bernal mine at
Carthage the usual procedure was
being followed yesterday which has
been followed on and off for the past
twenty-siX years,
AT 1870 a. m. the men began to
quit the galleries for the noon hour,
leaving underground only the gang
I'm charge Of the fuses, whose daily
duty had from long practice degen-
Grated into an uneVentful routine.
Several Of the charges had ex-
ploded successfully when, for some
unknown reason, possibly defective
fuse. one Of them merely "hzZed,"
raising. without the least notice, the
dangerous and terrible dust cloud.
Instantly the air was filled with the
deadly. choking COmbustible Wnlch
had scarcely begun TO rise when II
was encountered by flashes Of fire
from some of the other shots
Explosion Came Without Warning,
Like "a bolt from the blue sky, the