Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1911-03-17
SAFEGUARDING
LIVES OF MINERS

Since Uncle Sam has taken upon
himself the task of educating miners
to the necessity of new methods of
protection in underground shafts there
has becnh great increase in the pop
ular attention given to this subject.
The statement was made i'm recent
issue of the Scientific American that
in the past twenty years coal mines
in this country have made 11.OOO
widows and 30, 900 orphans, and have
exacted q toll of 30, 600 lives. In five
years more than regiment has been
killed outright in the Pennsylvania
coal mines alone.
1T seems time, says this paper,
for the government to make SIREN
uous efforts to overcome the igno-
rance which causes most of the fatal
tiles. -
Accordingly, the work of the new
Bureau of Mines in its mine rescue
campaign is 4 work of education. One
free school has already been opened
to miners and others are planned for
establishment in the near future.
or more than usual interest are
the experiments and operations car
ried on by the Bureau of Mines. I'm
der the direction of experts sham ex-
plosions are caused and tests made to
determine the comparative power of
the explosive materials used in mines
The miners are invited to watch the
effect of these explosions, which are
under control. Galleries are used for
lamp tests, which are made under con-
ditions identical with those met in
underground shafts.
Miners are taught in mimic shafts
how to act in eases of emergency.
Difficult passages, with openings
such rs those found in coal mine.
make the conditions similar to actual
life. Dummies representing asphyx-
lated miners are carried out by the
men of the rescue corps while the
miners look on.
Travelling schools, or mine rescue
cars, are engaged in spreading this
knowledge. Six of these cars will
soon be in the field, each with its
separate territory to cover. Among
the exhibits on these cars will be
telephones to aid in the work of mine
rescue.
Not long ago John Mitchell, who
tor nearly ten years was president of
the Unitd Mine Workers, was quoted
as saying:
Mine calamities always suggest
means by which lives thus lost might
have been saved If coal mines were
equipped with telephones throughout
their workings, it would be possible
for men entombed to let those on the
oustide know the location of the place
in which they were gathered, or at
least let them know what was their
condition. And thus the work of res
cue would be greatly aided -
Since the disaster of less than two
years ago in the Cherry coal mine it
has been generally recognized that
telephone system is essential Tor the
proper safeguarding of the lives of
the miners. The develoment of tele-
phone systems in mines has nearly all
occurred since that calamity.
Telephone manufacturers recoe-
nized that the ordinary telephones
which serve so we'll the purposes for
which they were designed would not
do for underground service. This re-
quires a telephone set that will be
proof against fumes, gases, moisture
and other riogorus conditions met
with in mine shafts. Accordingly.
there have recently been developed
telephone sets that fulfill these rigid
specifications. -
Some of these ironclad telephone
sets will stand up against the most
rigid conditions to be found in mines
of every description. A photograph
recently was taken of Pennsylvania
miner using one of the Western Elec-
trio Company's mine telephones in
stalled ~, 600 feet from the surface.
The advantage of a system of these
metal clad instruments are very an
parent.
The use of telephone and signal
systems forms considerable portion
of the instruction that is given to
miners in a course on protection in
underground shafts. In case of
emergency there are two methods of
communication between the interior
of a mine and the outside world. One
is to run. jump, stumble and walk
through darkened corridors The other
is to use the telephone.