XXX.
PERILS OF THE MINER.
NARROW ESCAPE OF THE AUTHOR.—CAUGHT IN A LEVEL.—SETTLING OF THE ROOF.—BREAKING TIMBERS.—A PERILOUS PASSAGE.—FALLING OF A ROOF.—THREATENING DANGERS.—ADVENTURE OF GIRAUD, THE WELL-DIGGER.—CAUGHT IN A FALL OF EARTH.—THREE WEEKS WITH A CORPSE.—ONE MONTH WITHOUT FOOD.—HOW HE WAS RESCUED.—A MINER COVERED WITH COAL.—HIS RESCUE.—AN IRISHMAN’S JOKE.—INUNDATION.—CURIOUS THEORIES OF THE MINERS.—EFFECT OF STRIKING A VEIN OF WATER.—DRAWING THE MEN IN A MINE.—THE SEA BREAKING IN.—CLOSING THE SHAFT.—A TERRIBLE STORY.—EXPERIENCE OF A FRENCH ENGINEER.—CASUALTIES AND THEIR NUMBER.—SUFFOCATION OF THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-ONE MEN IN ONE MINE.
I was once in a mine in Colorado, when I fervently wished myself out of it. I had been there a day or two before, and found that in one of the levels I was just able to stand erect. At the visit in question I found I could not stand erect without hitting my head. I was certain that I had not grown six inches taller in the mean time, and I accordingly concluded that the roof had settled. All at once, while proceeding on my walk, I was astonished at hearing a crackling sound behind me; and on looking around, I discovered that some of the timbers were giving way.
Here was a predicament. The breaking timbers were between me and the entrance to the mine, and I knew that if they should fall, so as to close up the passage, I should be cut off from escape.
AN UNPLEASANT PREDICAMENT.
It did not take a long time for me to determine what to do. At the risk of being crushed by the falling timbers and rock, I darted backward, extinguishing my light in the rapidity of my movements, and becoming wrapped in almost completedarkness. Luckily, however, there was a light burning in the level; and as I crept among the breaking timbers, it was as welcome to me as the polar star to a man at sea, when his compass has become unreliable.
Another and another of the timbers gave way as I walked, or rather crept, beneath them. When they were broken in the centre, they had partly, but not completely, closed the passage, their ends being held firmly in the rock. I managed to reach the other side, and as soon as I considered myself safe, I turned round to see what was going on. The timbers settled very slowly; there was no one on the level beyond them; and had any persons been there, the settling of the roof was so slow, that they would have had plenty of time for escaping.
When I reached the outside, I made a vow to avoid similar dangers in future, and it was some time before I again ventured where I should be liable to a similar accident.
Falls of the roof are a kind of danger which is always thought of when underground works are considered. In certain kinds of rock there is no liability to occurrences of this sort. The roof is as solid, and as well supported, as that of any house, and there is no danger of its yielding; but where the rock is slippery and loose, or where the ground is soft, the peril that threatens is constant.
Falls of earth are not unfrequent in digging wells. Many a man has lost his life in consequence.
An exciting story is told of a well-digger, named Giraud, who was excavating a well near Lyons, about twenty years ago.
TERRIBLE FATE OF A WELL-DIGGER.
The earth caved in, and Giraud found himself dashed to the bottom of the hole by the side of a fellow-workman. Luckily, the timbers fell in such a way as to form a sort of arch above their heads, and thus saved them from being crushed at once. Some men, who were above at the time of the accident, immediately set to work to save the sufferers. It was necessary to dig a new shaft near the first, and then connect the two by a driftway, which would reach the men at the pointwhere they were enclosed. Their efforts were constant, but in spite of them, a whole month was spent in reaching the spot, as fresh falls of earth were constantly occurring in the new workings. Giraud and his comrade could hear the noise of the pick, and could converse with the workmen, and assure them that they were alive.
At the end of a week, Giraud’s companion died of exhaustion and starvation. Giraud was a man of great strength, both of mind and body, and bore up as well as he could under his suffering. The dead body of his companion, which lay near him, poisoned the little air he had to breathe; but somehow he lived day after day for a whole month. Every moment his rescuers expected to reach him, when some fresh accident occurred, and much of the work had to be done over again. On the thirtieth day they reached the prison, and Giraud was saved.
He was wasted to a skeleton, and unable to stand. His body was a mass of sores; gangrene had attacked all his limbs, caused by the corpse which had been rotting at his side for three weeks. He was carried to the hospital, and every attention was given him; but he had suffered too much, and died within a month of the day of his rescue.
Occasionally masses of rock drop from the roof without the least warning, and fall upon the heads of the miners. Sometimes a man may escape with the loss of a limb, or he may be killed outright. In other cases, the walls and timbers give way, and men are crushed beneath their weight.
A story is told of a miner who was caught by the fall of some coal which nearly crushed him, but he had sufficient strength remaining to call for help. A comrade heard him, and gave the alarm. All the men who could work in the small space were immediately gathered; and a part of the coal having been removed from around the sufferer his head and one of his hands became visible. He was lying on his right side upon the floor of the gallery, with his legs doubled beneath him. There was a mass of broken timber above him, so that he could not move, but fortunately his chest was notcompressed. Air was supplied him by means of a ventilator and a tube. The rails and some of the other timbers by which he was enclosed were cut through, and a space was opened in such a way as to reach him from below. He did not lose courage a moment; he remained perfectly cool, and gave his preservers several useful suggestions. Finally, after six hours of suffering, he was removed.
In several instances miners have been enclosed in such a way that escape was impossible. All efforts to relieve them were unavailing, and those who remained uninjured from the fall of the rock died of suffocation or starvation.
AN IRISHMAN’S JOKE.
Let us change a moment from the horrible to the ludicrous. A few months ago, an Irishman, who was digging a well in Illinois, left his work, and went to breakfast. When he returned, he found that the earth had caved in. There was a clump of trees a few yards away, and after looking around to ascertain if any one was in sight, and knowing that some friend would be there shortly, he took off his coat, hung it upon a post, and then, taking his shovel and pick, retired to the shelter of the trees. He had just concealed himself, when his friends made their appearance. They saw the coat hanging upon the post, and they saw that the earth had caved in. Immediately concluding that their friend was buried below, they set at work to rescue him.
They worked with the greatest energy for two or three hours, and at the end of that time had removed all the fallen earth. But no Pat was there. Just as they were wondering what had become of him, he walked leisurely from his place of concealment, and thanked them for what they had done. At first they were inclined to be indignant, but finally concluded that it was a good joke, and a few drams of bad whiskey removed all differences.
The danger of underground inundations is as great as that of falls of earth. Water is constantly accumulating in a mine, and sometimes in such quantities as to defy all attempts to keep it under control.
Miners have curious theories about streams of water whichenter the mines. Some of the English miners believe the earth is alive, and they compare the veins of water in the earth to the veins and arteries of the human body. Sometimes they say, “When the water breaks into our working-places, it is the Earth which revenges itself upon us for having cut one of his veins.” The Belgian miners have the same belief, and they call the water which flows out of the coals, ‘le sang de la veine,’ that is, ‘the blood of the vein.’
FLOODING A MINE.
Inundations of mines are frequently fatal. Sometimes the water enters with great force. One day, in an English coal mine, the water fairly drove out the auger with which the workmen were boring a hole. It came as if from the nozzle of a fire engine. The workmen made several attempts to plug the hole, but could not, and were driven out. A few hours later the mine was flooded. Pumping machinery was set up, but it was not until the end of seven years that the water could be removed. It was only then stopped by means of banking, that prevented its further entrance.
In a mine near Newcastle, many years ago, there was an inundation which enclosed ninety men in a place where it was impossible to relieve them. Several persons, who were working close to the shaft when the water entered, managed to escape, but they were very few in number. The accident occurred in May, and it was not until the following February that the bodies of the drowned men were recovered. With one exception all were recognized.
At another coal mine, which was worked on the sea-shore, and extended a distance of fifteen hundred yards under the Irish Sea, the manager, in his anxiety to produce a large quantity of coal, recklessly cut away some of the pillars which supported the roof. One day the whole neighborhood was alarmed with the report that the mine had fallen in. The commotion was so great that many persons on the shore observed the whirl of the sea directly over the spot where the water entered. A few of the laborers escaped, but thirty-six men and boys were drowned. The accident happened more than thirty years ago. The coal mine is now, and alwaysmust remain, under water, and the bodies have never been recovered.
DEATH BY SUFFOCATION.
Some of the most terrible mining accidents are those which occur in consequence of the closing of the shafts. Where a mine has two shafts there is little liability of such accidents; but where there is only a single shaft the danger is constantly threatening. The terrible calamity at Avondale, which is fresh in the minds of many readers, will be described elsewhere.
A similar accident at an English coal mine, a few years ago, was even more terrible in its results than the calamity at Avondale.
The beam of the pumping engine gave way, and killed five men who were at that moment coming up in the cage. One hundred and ninety-nine men and boys were then working under ground. The enormous beam of the engine weighed more than forty tons. In its fall it carried down all the timbers of the shaft, damaging the walls in several places. The rubbish and broken timbers accumulated in the shaft, and closed the only mode of egress for the miners. The beam and timberings cut off all connection between the interior of the mine and the outside world. The mine was furnished with ventilating furnaces, in which a large quantity of fuel was burning, and it was supposed that the imprisoned miners died of suffocation within twenty-four hours. Some of the men who were imprisoned tried to force an outlet, but they were unable to do so, and died in the effort.
Many accidents of this kind might be described. In the various coal-mining countries of the globe, they may be said, in the aggregate, to be of almost weekly occurrence. Where the owners of mines neglect or decline to provide their works with two entrances, it is imperatively necessary, for the protection of life, that the law should interfere, and compel them to do so.
ACCIDENT AT A FRENCH MINE.
A few years ago, at a mine in France, the engineer one day observed that the cages did not work properly in the guides. Fifty-six yards below the surface he discovered that the liningof the shaft deviated from the perpendicular. The joints and displacements were visible at several points. All the men, three hundred in number, were ordered to leave the mine.
Men went down the shaft to cover the openings, but the result was only to create fresh ones. For the next two days the lining of the shaft repeatedly cracked.
The planks broke one by one, and the water rushed into the works. The consulting engineer of the mine was called in, and when he arrived he descended with the superintendent, both of them in fear that they were going to certain death. Their lamps went out while they were descending, but they carried a lantern, which was hanging to the bottom of the tub in which they descended. By the light of this lantern they discovered an enormous opening in the middle of the lining. Stone, and earth, and rubbish were continually falling, and a torrent of water ran through.
“Let us go up again,” said the engineer. “The water is master of the situation, and all hope of saving this working is gone.”
In relating this incident afterwards, the engineer said, “I lived ten years in half an hour. My hair turned white in that perilous descent, which I shall never forget as long as I live.”
A few hours afterwards, holes which began at the middle of the shaft extended from top to bottom. At the pit’s mouth, an immense opening had formed nearly forty yards in diameter, and ten yards deep. Engine, boilers, buildings, machinery, and scaffolding gradually fell into the opening. At each movement of the ground a fresh ingulfment took place. The sky was dark and covered with clouds. The timbering of the shaft gave out sparks under the enormous friction which was caused by the sudden fracture of the wood. A peacock, shut up in the neighboring court-yard, gave signs of alarm, and uttered loud cries at every movement of the ground, and at every fresh fall. “No poet could describe, nor painter represent, the desolating spectacle which we witnessed,” said the engineer, in concluding the account of the occurrence.
STATISTICS OF ACCIDENTS.
In this country it is next to impossible to give correct statistics of the number of lives lost by these accidents. In Great Britain and France statistics are obtainable.
In those countries, according to the report of the inspectors of mines, about one half the mining accidents are occasioned by falls of the roof and coal. A third of the accidents are in the shaft in various ways. The remainder, or one sixth of the casualties, occur from blasting, explosion of fire-damp, suffocation, and, finally, inundation.
According to an English report, there was one death for every two hundred and sixteen persons employed in the mines. It was estimated that one life was lost for every sixty-eight thousand tons of coal obtained. In some districts of England the proportion was one life lost for every twenty-two thousand tons. In the year 1866, six hundred and fifty-one lives were lost from explosions of fire-damp. In the previous year there were only one hundred and sixty-eight deaths from the same cause. Altogether, in the year 1866, there were fourteen hundred and eighty-four deaths from mining accidents in Great Britain alone. The total number of deaths from all violent causes in the mines of Great Britain, in ten years, was nine thousand nine hundred and sixteen. Twenty per cent. of these were caused by fire-damp explosions.
The greatest number of lives lost at any one time through mining accidents was at the Oaks Colliery, in 1866, when three hundred and sixty-one miners lost their lives.
GREAT LOSS OF LIFE.
At the Hartley, Wigan, and Bury Collieries, many fearful accidents have taken place within the past few years, whereby many lives were lost. These accidents, in justice to the owners, or superintendents, let it be said, are not always due to the want of precaution on the part of the managers, but from gross neglect, or through non-observance of the rules under which the mine is worked. For example, the men were very careless in the use of the safety-lamps. Every lamp is locked before it is given out, and every care is taken to prevent its being opened. The men will occasionally amuse themselves by trying to pick the locks, and that, too, in places where theair is full of explosive gas. So accustomed are they to danger, that they hold it in great contempt; and the result is, that fatal accidents were much more common than if men were cautious and obedient.
At the time of the Oaks Colliery explosion, great sympathy was manifested throughout England, just as was subsequently seen in the Avondale disaster in America. For days after the occurrence, the daily papers were filled with long details of the horror, the recovery of the bodies of the victims, the distressing scenes at the mouth of the mine, and at the graveyard, and the brave deeds of the men who were fortunately absent from the mine at the time of the explosion.
Subscriptions were opened in nearly every church for the benefit of the survivors, and at the suggestion of Queen Victoria, the then Lord Mayor of London and Common Council held a public meeting to raise money for the families of the victims. The appeals were liberally responded to through the whole country. Many of the wives of the dead miners received life pensions, and all the bereaved families were placed above immediate want.