Year: 1879

ISOOI-Ftescued After Five Days Con-

 1nenlcnt.

 The seven miners who were buried alive by the sudden fall of the roof of a mine near Wilkesbarre, Pa., were en- tombed five days before the rescuing party, who worked day and night, reach ed them. One of the rescued men, John Green, gave a reporter this vivid ac- count of the falling roof and the five days Imprisonment: "It was Wednes- day morning, at about two o'clock I should think, when John Clark, the door tender, came running back and told us of the falling roof. IL w:,s. you may well imagine, startling intelligence. We did not hesitate long what to do. Crab ping what was next to us we made nasty exit from the heading and ran back through the gangway for half a mile 1 suppose. Here we met the fall It seemed as if the whole thing from the surface had come down. It looked pretty blue. Then we tried another way. We thought of several routes, but every time we found the way closed up. We finally concluded that if we could get to the foot of the mainway, which leads from the Fulton gangway up the Davis gangway, perhaps we could get out. We feared that we could not get to the foot, but we did, and felt first-rate until we found, as we went up hill, that it was closed. It was on Wednesday when it fell in We had no timepiece with us and could only guess the time. Every minute seemed an hour. We would get sleepy and then we thought it might be the regular sleeping hour. Well, we tried to dig out the mainway. We dug and dug on our hands and knees for hours, and perhaps had got through fifty feet of it, but there seemed to be no end to it and we were becoming exhausted. To add to this, in our weak ened condition, was the fact that the roof kept falling all around us. We did the best we could by propping, but it came down all the time, and we were in the danger of getting caught in the place and crushed to death. We held consulta- tions, and the only conclusion we could arrive at for a long time was that we were lost. Then we would hear noise and hallOo, but soon discovered that instead of friends coming to find us that it was the falling of the roof and perhaps the dropping of water. We found an old vest near the branches of the road where the air was good, where we stayed. The air was good then until about an hour before we were found this morning, when it became light and clear, because of a broken down air conductor. When we were found we were putting up the brac- ing so as to conduct the air again in its regular channel. We had safety lamps to prospect about the mines with, and could have built fire. Where we stayed we were not troubled with gas at all, al though we knew it had accumulated in some places. We heard noises when the miners began to work upon the coal. Again and again we heard it, and it sounded like an explosion, and then we made up our minds that the men were trying to find us. We could also hear the men at work in the old slope and we rapped to them. Our courage stiffened up and we felt first-rate. Then the noise stopped and we did not hearIhem for a long time, We got disheartened again. We thought, may be, they had become discouraged and had given us up. It was pretty tough to believe, but what else could we do? We knew they had been working for us, and when we didn't hear them any more we had to believe that something was the matter and that they were giving up. On Friday I felt the worst. I had not thought before this that I was going to die, but it came over me that day. We all thought be fore this that we were lost, but it did not seem to be so bad to me as on Friday. When 1 began to think about it 1 tell you the tears were not far from my eyes. J

 "How did the door-boy, Johnny Clark, stand it?"

 "He was the best of the lot. He's a brave, good-hearted boy. We all felt we'll of Johnny. He's as good man as any of us. He never whimpered only when he'd think of his mother; then his spirits would get down and he'd feel bad. I tell you it's pretty hard place to be in, and most anybody would feel glum under such circumstances.

 We ate up all our food on Tuesday night, expecting, of course, to get our breakfast at home in the morning, but it was long time till that morning. All day Wednesday we worked and tried every way to get out and didn't think much of eating, but on Thursday we began to get pretty hungry.

 "What was to be done, was the ques- tion We held consultation and it was unanimously agreed that the mule must supply our food. We had tied the old fellow up, for he was getting hungry too, and eating the props and timbers. Besides, when a mule gets mad he will attack a man. We let the poor old fellow out and I knocked him down with hammer, and Billy Kinney, his driver, cut his neck with an axe. We did not skin the carcass all at once, but peeled it off as we required it. We had no salt but it was Godsend that we had the mule. We would have starved if he had not been there, and they eat horse meat in France, you know. The water was first rate. It came to us through the roof, and it was as pure as we could ask it. By a fire we buckets. This morning, when we could hear no blasting, we though it was Sunday and the men had stopped work ing, but we found out since that it was because they dared not fire for fear of setting the gas on fire and burning us. They did not come out where we ex- pected they would strike, and it fright ened us, because we knew where they touched it was full of gas. If we had not left our regular stopping place in the old breast to go and fix u p the broken down air,vay they would have had a