The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-03-26
MINING RESEMBLES
 RAILROAD TUNNELS
Soldiers Constantly at Work
 Under Ground
FOR VARIOUS OBJECTS
Entire Top of Hill Is Blown Off When Enemy Occupies Summit-Break Through Ere
 quently Into Countermine

] Bar-Lu-I.ac, France, March 1-(Corre- spondence of the Associated Press.)-The mining operations on some sections of the French front resemble vast railroad tunneling enterprises. All along the slope of hills where the sumnits alone separate the combatants there are mouths of tun- nels framed with timbers such as sup port the galleries of coal mines. All day and all night soldiers wheel earth out of these tunnels to platforms where dump cars on a strategic narrow-g gauged rail road are waiting to carry It off 10 De used Tn the grading of new strategic lines.
 A study of the official communiques gives only slight indications of the ob- ject of all this activity. What 1t means depends upon the lay of the land Tn some cases it amounts to nothing less than the blowing off of the tops Of hills. Ihere are places where the Germans hold the summit and the French are dug in on the slope; there are others where neither the French nor Germans have been able to occupy the summit excepting with small isolated advance posts that are annhilated at intervals, and here it is necessary to blow the top off the height before an issue can be reached.
 GOING ON A YEAR
 This tunneling has been going on for more than a year in some places, but public evidences of the extent of it date only from the beginning of the year.
 Big mines are exploded every day in- side those honeycombed hills, where it Is not rare for the Frenchmans' tunnel to run into a German underground gal lery. If they meet before the mine is ready, it is 'camouf1et' or a small blast, that is set off by the adversary that To- cates the other fellow first. It is quickly done with an American pneumatic tool that bores hole in the direction from which comes the tell-tale sound of the pick. A charge of dynamite. lyddite, or melinite is stuffed in and the hole is plugged so that the mine is safe and the force of the explosion all turned to- ward the adversary's gallery.
 Blasting is sometimes done also to hasten the excavating work, but most of the diging requiring discretion is the work of the American pneumatic drill and pneu- matic pick, kept working by air com pressors brought, up to the foot of the hill.
 The forests of the Argonne all along the front have been razed by shell and shraprel; and the aspect of the hills is being still further modified by these tun- neing and mining operations
 A practical miner in private life, spe- cialized at the front in this kind of work, describes the conditions under which tho work is often suddenly stopped and the enemy's opera tions checked at the same time.
 STRIKING COUNTERMINE
 ''The sappers are digging, shoveling in silence. when suddenly one of them stops; he has heard a hollow sound in the soil under his pick; two or three more strokes and his instinct of an old miner reveals to him that there is a hole under the gallery; he strikes again, the point of the pick penetrates; there is no more doubt but that a, German bla sting hole exists underneath. By small strokes, slowly, with infinite precaution, the sapper en- larges the opening, then aided by his comrades, lets himself down into the hole with revolver in his first. It is indeed German blasting hole that he has dis covered, with gallery at the end. The question is whether it is occupied-im- possible to tell; the enemy perhaps will appear and rush upon the intruder; no one comes, the mine Is empty. Leaving watchman, the sappers and miners as- cend into the French gallery and go and report their discovery to the captain, who decides to profit by the occasion to play good game upon the Germans. While continuing to work in the neighboring mines to deceive the adversary, sappers and auxiliaries of the infantry are put
 
 the old German blasting hole which com municates with the gallery leading to the German earthworks. and to little oc- crpied post Everyone works unceasing- ly What a good joke we are going to play upon them everyone says. The Germans at the other end of the gallery are on the watch, and we have been on the watch for them to see that they did not surprise our plans, for the slightest slip or awkwardness, a bungling move ment with the tools, might give the alarm. Finally, at dawn the work is done. The entire German gallery at the end where 1t communicates with our excavation is nothing but a vast canon stuffed with cheddite; all the men are at their post, signal is given, the fuse lighted, and in ar instant the earth cracks. It is safe to raise head above the surface now, for the enemy is too much occupied to fire. The trench is entirely unheaved and the Germans fly in the air. some of them VI hn1 md If iy,v v<c