Evening star., 1936-04-20
MINE RESCUERS,
NEAR R'BURlEDMEN,'
ERR IN DIRECTION
Must Change Course to
Reach ViCtims-TWo Can
Live IL Hours.
MAGILL, PART OWNER,
DIES AS RELIEF NEARS
Canadian Diggers Risk Lives in
Abandoned Shaft to Get to
Entombed Pair.
1896, by the Associated Press)

(Copyright, 1886, by the Associated Press)
MOOSE RIVER, NJ S., April 20
With three trapped men-two living
and one dead-only a few feet away,
tired rescue workers reported this
afternoon that they feared they had
miscalculated the position of the gold
mine chamber toward which they are
digging.
One and one-half hours after they
had estimated that they only had
five feet to go through solid rock to
reach the entombed men, they said
they we're afraid they had missed the
old Meagher shaft where the men were
caught.
They started at once to make
cross cut from their dangerous gal
lery in an effort to tap the tomb Of
the living men.
DR.. D. E. Robertson and Charles
Alfred Scadding are imprisoned. DR..
Robertson, one Of two still alive
after a weeks imprisonment in the
gold mine, reported earlier today he
and his companion could hold out at
least IL hours longer.
With DR.. Robertson, part-owner Of
the mine, was his timekeeper Scadding,
and the body of his partner. Herman
r. Magill, Toronto lawyer, who sue
cumbed during the night, apparently
to hunger and exposure.
Veteran miners were digging from
two directions to get to the trapped
men.
F. D. Henderson, mine manager,
predicted rescuers would get through
the crumbling tunnels before noon.
The miners were burrowinA IN through
loose rocks without stoppipe to timber
up their passages,
Communications between the sur
face and the l41 foot level, where the
men are trapped, were improved this
morning by the lowering of tiny
microphone on q slim wire through
a fve-inch pipe for which an. opening
had been bored by a diamond drill.
Can Last IL Hours.
Into this microphone DR.. Robertson
said:
You needn't get through to us for
10 or IL hours or longer. We can
hold out"
Mrs. Robertson heard her husbands
words. She shouted down through
the pipe:
Good. We are coming. We will
be there"
The doctor responded: 1--WE are
all right"
The three men we're trapped Easter
Sunday night when an area of land
400 feet long, rs feet wide collapsed
and sank is feet.
Since then rescuers have met re-
peated disappointments in efforts to
reach the l4l-foot level Of the Magill
shaft where the men were trapped.
Attempts were made through the
old Archibald and Meagher shafts,
but had to be abandoned because the
cave-in had blocked them far below
the surface.
A new shaft, blasted through solid
rock to meet the Meagher slope below
the affected area, missed its mark
and was abandoned.
While those approaches were being
tried another crew opened the death
shaft" to within IS feet Of the men.
Surface workers had known Magill
was i'll before his death was reported.
He had been heard coughing soon
after communications were established
through the diamond drill hole earlv
yesterday morning. Before his cough
was heard, however, he had sent words
Of cheer to his wife at the drill hole.
Magill, war veteran, had not been
In good health. DR.. Robertson had
(See MINERS, Page 81