The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1920-05-27


shaft is an incline of about 55 de-
grees, 200 feet deep, and sunk from
an adit tunnel 300 feet long, and / am
convinced after examining all the
principle Witnesses that the men lost
their lives by first being overcome
with carbon monoxde gas before fall
ing into the stump and being drowned,
and that the accident was partly due
to too much dependence on compress
ed air ventilation.
How It Happened.
THE night shift had blasted a
round of Is holes in a foot wall cross
cut being driven for a stump. and
marked up two misfires going off shift
at midnight They left the air blow
ing for two hours before shutting
down the compressor on their way
home at the lower works. The fol-
lowing morning at 700 o'clock, after
starting the compressor Bergen and
Johnson went up the mountain an
hour ahead of the regular shift to
lower and start the pump. Bergen
shut off the air valve at the bottom
while he attached the suction, lower
ed the pump and adjusted the extern
sion ladder, working alone most of
the time for fully half an hour when
ne rang three bells, but if on the
bucket at the time, he was evidently
overcome and fell back into the stump.
It is probable he had stirred up lay
er of deadly monoXide powder gas on
top of the stump by his work on the
pump and suction hose, as the bucket
came to the collar of the shaft empty.
This alarmed the hoistman and others
who could see a lamp burning clearly
in the bottom, and not suspecting gas
on that misleading evidence. Johnson
and Connolly went down to investi-
gate. were both overcome by the dead
Iy gas and also fell into the stump and
were drowned.
HecIa and Hercules Help.
TRAINED oxygen apparatus men
were called by phone from the Hercu-
les and Hecla mines who quickly re-
sponded, but found no sign of the
victims who had sunk out of sight in
the stump, from which the bodies were
recovered by these operators with
grapples.
"There were two air lines down the
shaft The two-inch line valve was
open at the shaft collar and if the
victims had retained the presence of
mind to open the bottom valve the
compressed air would have probably
swept away the deadly gas and pre-
vented the disastrous result; but COM
pressed air is not entirely dependable
and the operation should have been
provided with an exhaust fan or
blower, to insure a definite supply of
fresh air, and will have to be so sup
piled before the shaft can proceed any
deeper.
Mr.. Bells Theory.
1.-THE conditions on my arrival at
the property remained undisturbed
except that the water had been pump
ed and the round mucked down to the
level of the short crosscut in the
breast of which l found two missed
holes, one of which had cut off and
still had live powder in it. The other
was empty, but had not exploded and
the powder probably burned out OF
il and developed a big volume of pos-
onous monoxide gas. There was a
slight overbreak pocket in the roof
little higher than the portal of the
crosscut in which the gas body could
have been sealed in by the rising wa
ter in the stump, then gradually leak
ing through the cracks in the ground
and be subsequently diffused in the
dead air of the shaft above the water
TO be breathed in fatal proportions by