The Washington times., 1936-04-22
VALIANT MEN
URGE D|GGERS
TO HURRY
Extra Miners Rushed
To Shaft to Aid in
Sinking Tunnel
Continued from Page u

trapped behind q rock-Slide 141
feet below the surface.
Hope was heightened, too, by
Minister of Mines Michael DwyeI
who has taken an ultraconServa-
tive attitude while he led the
arduous attack on the pile of slate
and stone that blocks off the en-
tombed men. He said:
'"There Is every evidence that
we are really past the worst sec
ton Of the slip of rock lodged In
the shaft through which We
have been advancing.
I'VE are now in much more
solid material, and it should be
more easily worked"
Impatient queStionerS crowded
around him, casting side glanceS
at the crumpled mine, its cupped
surface sinking slowly with notice
able menace. They chorused:
''When will you be through?
Do you have any idea when you
will reach them?"
Veteran Miner
He shrugged and said:
MONDAY afternoon ct 3
o'clock I thought we would have
them out by 6 o'clock. believed
that, then. Now. / don't know"
He Is q veteran Of underground
burrowing, this minister the
miners familiarly hail as mike"
He started life as a miner and still
thinks of himself as a miner.
Led by Dwyer, 60 years old, his
face heavy and drawn an ashen
hue by wearineSS and worry, the
inch-by-inch fight goes on below
the surface.
Kneeling, squatting on their
launches, cramped for work-room,
the rescue gangs continue their
painful progress. Behind the fore
most, in the narrow tunnel, a line
Of these men-of-iron forms.
Progress Is Slow
Along this human chain pass
chunks of rock and pals of scrab-
BILE, hacked away from the barrier
behind which DR.. Robertson and
Scadding wait. The foremost men,
the men with the picks, grab up
the debris as fast as they knock
it down, pass it to the first man
on the long chain and attack the
rock barrier again. The progress
is heartbreakingly slow.
They, too, are gambling their
lives for the lives Of the trapped
men. Every foot Of the way in the
rescue shaft, every hour that
passes, is a gamble between life
and death in that shifting, sag
ging-pit.
Any moment, without warning,
a fall may come, tumbling a
cascade of rock and slate and
timbering on them, burying them
in underground avalanche. Should
such occur, and each miner
works with fingers figuratively
crossed, the slide would trap not
only the rescuers but defer in
definitely the rescue Of the two
men below.
Minute by minute the mole-like
burrowing goes on, until the
miners are grimy, red-eyed, ma.
chine-like automatonS. They think
not - they dare not think =
thought is repelled as each
thought rises.
Inspector Phillips explains that:
"YOu 60 mad If you think
down there" (He'S done his
''bit" belOw.)
"The threat above and around
you. Men don't think. They
just work"
CAN'T MAKE SPEED
Dwyer, a stubble-faced cabinet
minister, interpolates:
"The boys just can't make
speed. There is room for only
two men at the face Of the rock
barrier, one putting up timber
while the other picks away at
the rock face"
It isn't a question of men
there are hundreds Of volunteers
it is question Of man. One
man. Dwyer said:
''If we had q thousand men
It would not help. Only one
can form the spearhead.
Boiled down, this means the
advance depends on the speed
Of q single man, the man dig.
ging at the face"
BY the time the imprisoned
men are reached, he calculated,
60 tons of rocks will have been
hacked away by the No. / man
and passed out along the human
chain of squatting, kneeling men.
The progress to date has been
along this line-a curving ap-
proach from the old Reynolds
shaft into. the 80-foot level, then
into the sloping main shaft and
then the present boring through
the jam Of fallen rock wedged
in the shaft to a depth some 20
feet above the 141-foot level,
where the men are trapped.
How slow that progress has
been, how unexpected obstacles
TUNED up and were conquered,
one by one, was told by Dwyer.
He said:
"FrOm the afternoon Of Mon