Evening star., 1925-02-03

others have tugged at a rope fas-
tened about the body of the victim.
He has been moved five inches in
four days
Apparently only the most primitive
methods will be successful, If any
thing is to be. A compressed air
drill was rushed here from Louis
VILE, but experienced cave men said
there was grave danger that the
vibrations would loosen other rock
and cause the narrow passage to col
lapse, so it was not used.
May Tunnel to Victim.
Early today 1t was discovered that
workmen within the cave could be
heard family from the side of the
hill about 800 feet from the entrance.
A plan to bring 100 men to the
spot and begin a tunnel imme mediately
was evolved. The rescue work here
tofore heroic but haphazard and uL-
organized took on a semblance of or
der. If a tunnel put through the
hill strikes Sand Cave more than $50
feet from the entrance, workmen will,
for the first time, reach Collins from
the side where the rock weighing
him down can be seen.
Meanwhile another plan was being
pushed by those men working within
the cave. A large screw jack, supplied
by the Courier-Journal, was to be
placed against the wall in front of
Collins. With a pipe or piece of tim
ber extending from the jack across
Collins body to the slab it was plan
ned to exert pressure against the
stone. If the prisoner was moved five
inches, rescuers argued, it might be
possible to move the rock backward
far enough to permit extricating Col
Inns.
Tells of New Chamber.
No one knows whether the passage
way Immediately beyond Collins al
lows much leeway in pushing the
stone. The jack, too, may prove in
sufficient, as the weight of the slab
has been estimated at six or eight
tons Here, again, hope reverts to the
possibility of reaching the prisoner
from behind.
Behind and below Collins is an
immense vaulted chamber, the largest
and most beautiful he has ever seen,
Collins told Jewell Estes, when Estes
discovered his plight Saturday.
Residents who know Collins and re-
call that he discovered Crystal Cave
with it's marvellous formations of deli
cate beauty believe that his new dis
coyerv is a wonder cavern.
A staff correspondent of the Louis
Vile Courier-Journal in a dispatch
to his paper, filed here. told of go
ing into the cave to the imprisoned
man.
He said he was lowered by heels
into the entrance of the cave and
descended to the end of an S0-foot
drop, where he reached fairly level
ground.
From here on had to squirm like
a snake" he said. Water covers al
most every inch of the ground, and
after the first few feet / was wet
through and through. Every moment
1t got colder. Dirty water splashed d
in my face and numbed my body.
Finally l slid down an eight-foot drop
and moment later saw Collins"
He said that Collins brothers, Mar
shall and Homer had taken oilcIoth
into the cave to protect their kins-
man from the necessarily dripping
water. They had done everything
humanity possible for him, sparing
them selves nothing, until they col
lapsed from exhaustion. Still opti-
mistic, but himself facing a complete
breakdown, Collins has entered in to
any scheme to extract him from the
trap nature created for one who
would dare to explore her subter
ranean cavernS. once before he had
been a prisoner for two days, when
another enormous boulder fell and
blocked his esress from Crystal Cave
after he ha& penetrated new-found
passages.