The Sentinel=record., 1909-11-17
ASK THE AIDS
 OF TROOPS
(continued from page one)

who lost husbands ventured to Vlslt the shaft, and these crying for lost one, had to be almost forcibly taken back. It was a scene of desolation.
 Frequently puff of smoke issued from crevice in the cover of the shaft. This was taken as an evidence of the fire raging within Outdoors the mpurners experienced intense cold, an icy wind sweeping over the prairies.
 Speculation was rife as to the lo- cation of the bodies in the mine. Upon this will be determined the cause of the mems death, whether it was fire, suffocation by smoke or the falling in of parts of the mine.
 If the bodies are found near the shaft 1t would indicate the men per ished by fire If they are found in the most distant galleries the opinion is held thaf suffocation by smoke or gas was the cause.
 The repeated sealing of the mouth of the mine, necessary to stop dnaugiht and smother the fire, it is held, was sufficient to generate enough gas to kill the men in any part of the mine. The location of the bodies will indi- cate about when the men died. for the noxious gases in the mine did not be come fatally dense until some time after the first fire was considerably subdued.
 Two hundred and fifty pine boxes in which are to be buried such of the bodies as are recovered, arrived to- day and were stored near the mine. although the fact of their presence was carefully kept from the afflicted families
 Funerals of eight of the miners who were killed Saturday were held today The belief was expressed by Manager Taylor that the men in the mine were dead after the disaster on Saturday.
 Taylor has repeatedly rislxed his life to get into the mine and yester. day was all but sacrificed when he wandered two hundred feet from the main shaft and returned just in time to see the flames eating their way toward the cage in which was his only means of escape.
 Every man in that mine was pul to sleep On the day of the fire,' said MT. Taylor.
 There is mo reason in the world why any one should try to arouse false hopes in the minds of these pool people
 "The men in the mine are dead They cannot be alive. Under any pro cess of scientific reasoning there car exist no ground for hope that single soul could have been found alive ar hour after the fire. To make thes, poor people think that when the mnt is opened their loved ones will b. found in some remote portion of tn, mine is cruel.
 "The tests in this mine showed Una on the day of this fire the air had velocity of GOO feet a minute. Tn, longest gallery in the mile is three quarters of a mile. The fire In tn mine was intense and the smoke an gases, known to miners as whit damp was whirled to every corne of the mine. No living thing coul escape IL To argue thar pocket might be found in which the gas di not penetrate is folly.
 "The entombed men all breathe this gas They could not escape | They went to sleep just about as person would taking ethe-. It is nc a painful death. I have been twic overcome by the gas but was rescue each time and recovered.
 "But we all have done everything | human power to get into the mine { .allay the anxiety of the people. " know that all are dead who were f there. But in such an emergency W have risked our own lives to satisf the agonized relatives of the deas The work of exploration has bee dangerous business. We don't war to lose any more lives. already W nave lost too many
 Yesterday I though I was gone. had been feeling about the secon vein. 250 feet from the shaft, breatf ing the OK. gen in the apparatus o my back, and on my return towarl the cage 1 discovered the flames. staged just as discovered the re neNed fire. could see it near ths cage and my first thought was tha the cage was stuck, owing to warpinf from the heat.
 Il thought that my time had come tut when reached the cage and gave the signal my heart grew light as 1t responded to the tug of the cable and