Evening star., 1922-08-31
FIRE OVER TRAPPED !
Miners SUBDUED
Intense Heat in Shaft Pre-
vents Entrance Of Search
|. !. ing Squads.
RESCUE HOPE PERSISTS
Three Teams Drilling Relief Holes,
Confident AZ Eutombsd Men
Can Live Six Days Longer.
RESCUE HOPE PERSISTS
By the Associated Press.

| By the Associated Press.
JACKSON. Calf. August 31.-Fire
in the shaft of the 'Argonaut gold
mine. In the lowest reach Of which
forty-seven miners have been i'm
prisoned since Sunday, Is out. but
that fact brought no nearer hope for
releasing the men. alive. The heat IN
the shaft Is so intense flames may
break out again at any moment. and
at the earliest it would be five days
before entrance TO the mine could be
gained through 1t.
Rescue teams still battle furiously
today to open up three routes Of es-
cape from the pitoh-black, smoke
choked underground mine drifts to
the sunlight and open air. where
tortured lungs might drink deep OF
fresh breezes.
Two were through passages which
workers. were endeavoring to cut
Through from tife Kennedy, an ad-
Joining mine, while another was
through the shaft Of the Argonaut
itself.
| Long Siege Ahead.
! 4 second rescue squad on q level
1000 feet below the group that has
worked since Monday, burrowing
from the 3.s00-foot level Of the Ken
nedy mine toward the Arsonaut
ceptible progress. It will be long
siege, through 500 10 coo feet OF loose
dirt before a 149-foot wall OF solid
slate rock is. reached
Three hundred feet above them
toiling and sweating, the half-naked
workers have drilled in brief shifts
| since Monday to cut through more
than 700 feet Of loose dirt and tim
| bers and 80 feet Of hard rock. They
struck a cave-in last night. slowing
| their progress. They estimated there
would be between 80 and 100 feet
more of rock and dirt to be cleared.
Announcement that the flames were
| subdued added hope to the gray faced
groups who walt in shifts 1T the en-
| trance to the pit and gave new
strength to the grim workers batter
ing at the rock walls in subterreanean
passages.
Rescue workers descending the
e.40o-foot level in mine skips and
went 100 feet farther on ladders.
They found the smoke greatly dimin-
ishcd. Tho water pipes at the sides
Of the shaft still wore too hot to
touch. The temperature at the 2,5oo-
foot mark was ten degrees hotter than
sixty feet above. But there was little
gas.
Prisoners Believed Alive.
! Hope that the miners still are alive
was firmly held by the consulting ex.
perts They are acting on the BELIEF
that the men have lived through more
than eighty hours of entombment.-
that they will be alive for Eve or ri,
days to come.
ii The wives and families of the en-.
tombed men assembled at the mouth
OF the shaft yesterday to join II
prayers for the delivery Of the men
offered by Rev. Edwin NJ. Brown. pas
tor Of the Methodist Episcopal churci
of Jackson Rev. Father KeArney vii
say mass at St Patrick's Church to
morrow morning. when prayers will
be offered Tor the fmprisoned men.
Yesterday rats began pouring from
the Argonaut mine In droves. Poisor
gas fumes are driving them out of tn,
lower levels and they came scamper
Ing up the tfmbering by the hundreds
Two years ago when the ArSonau
burned the same thing occurred OF
the second day after the flames brok,
out. All gold mines along the mother
lode are infested with the rodents.