the rescue did his full duty. Every man vied with his neighbor
in doing what was needed, however difficult it might be. All the
directors of mines in the Department of the Gard, assembled, and
brought their overmen, surveyors, and workmen, who, in every instance,
gave proof of a courage and self-denial which never failed for a
single moment. The government bestowed crosses and medals upon those
who rendered material assistance in the rescue, and the sad occurrence
will long be remembered in and around the mines of Lalle.
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.
[Sidenote: 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 complete darkness. 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.
[Sidenote: 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 point where 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 not compressed. 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.
[Sidenote: 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 which enter 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.’
[Sidenote: 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 always must remain, under water, and the bodies have never been
recovered.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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 lining of 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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
the air 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.
XXXI.
THE MAMMOTH CAVE.
ROMANCE AND MYSTERY OF CAVES.—THE FAMOUS CAVES OF THE WORLD.—THE
GREATEST CAVERN ON THE GLOBE.—ITS IMMENSE FAME.—AMERICANS’ NEGLECT
OF IT.—CAUSE OF THEIR INDIFFERENCE.—SITUATION OF THE MAMMOTH
CAVE.—ITS MISERABLE MANAGEMENT.—ANNOYANCES AND IMPOSITIONS
PRACTISED UPON TOURISTS.—JOURNEY THROUGH THE VAST TUNNEL.—WHAT
ONE SEES, FEELS, AND DOES.—CONSUMPTIVE GHOSTS.—WONDERS OF THE
STAR-CHAMBER.—DESCENT INTO THE BOTTOMLESS PIT.—CROSSING THE STYX
AND THE LETHE.—MARVELLOUS ECHOES.—STARTLING ACCIDENTS.—WOMEN IN
AWKWARD SITUATIONS.
Caves in all ages have been associated, not only with mystery and
romance, but with sorcery and superstition of every conceivable kind.
Fable and tradition have converted them into the abodes of demons
and witches, and history shows that robbers and law-breakers have
always made them places of refuge and shelter. Every mountainous
or picturesque region I have visited has abounded in witches’
caves, robbers’ caves, murderers’ caves, and caves generally, in
which supernatural rites and horrid deeds are supposed to have been
celebrated or committed. The dark, dreary, and weird quality of many
caves, added to their unique and fantastic formation and uncertain
windings naturally awake a feeling of awe, and appeal strongly and
strangely to the imagination.
The ancient priests, in order to influence favorably the minds of the
ignorant, pretended that the divinities they claimed to interpret
had their residence in deep and dreary caverns, and that thence they
revealed their mighty purpose to their mortal agents. The oracles
of Delphos, which princes and sages were wont to consult, were
interpreted, as it was assumed, by a priestess sitting at the mouth of
a cave, and claiming to predict the future of nations, and tell the
destiny of kings. The old Norsemen performed their barbarous rites in
caverns; the Indian Brahmins devoted caverns to religious purposes,
and from natural openings in the rocks constructed gorgeous temples.
These subterranean chambers were doubtless the earliest abodes of men,
and even now, in certain uncivilized regions, they are so employed.
Petra—the Sela and Joktheel of the Bible—continues to be visited as
a curiosity, because its ruins plainly indicate that its inhabitants
dwelt in spaces hewn out of the solid stone. That caverns were used
for the dead as well as for the living is evinced by the Catacombs of
Thebes, Rome, Naples, and Malta.
[Sidenote: MYSTERIES OF CAVES.]
The greatest caves known—new ones are constantly being discovered—are
of limestone, and of comparatively recent origin. Geology teaches that
the primary formations of caves are many, though small, being produced
by the action of water coursing through the strata, and that the
continuation of this process for ages creates the vast and beautiful
chambers, which all of us are so fond of exploring. Sweden and Norway
boast of granite vaults, especially Marienstadt, of extraordinary
dimensions, though some of them have been, as yet, but partially
penetrated. The vicinity of Quito contains caves of modern porphyry,
and the Isle of France caves of lava. Gurtshellir is a cavern of lava
in Iceland, forty feet high, fifty broad, and one mile long. The caves
of Agtelek in Hungary, and of Adelsberg in Carniola,—the latter noted
for its transparent white pillars and brilliant stalactites,—are among
the most remarkable in Europe.
Adelsberg has an unusual interest for naturalists, because a strange
reptile, called the proteus, half a lizard and half an eel, has its
habitat there. It has an extremely elastic constitution, and an
extraordinary adaptability, as may be inferred from the fact that
it subsists equally well on land or in water, imbedded in rock or
buried in mud, requiring neither air nor light, food nor drink, for
the sustainment of its existence. What an excellent _littérateur_ the
proteus would be as respects its limited necessities! If it happened
to be an unappreciated genius, like most literary men, it need not
feel any concern, for it could afford to wait until the world had
come round to it, and the age had grown worthy of its thought. Fame,
being a bubble, and therefore air, could not injure the nondescript
creature, nor could the throwing of mud, as is the custom of
journalists, mar it in the least. Much as it might be in (hot) water,
it would not be troubled, and as to detraction and misrepresentation,
its house would be (occasionally at least) built upon a rock, and
would therefore stand firm.
[Sidenote: THE CAVE OF GUACHARO.]
In Venezuela is the celebrated cave of Guacharo, among the loftiest
precipices of the mountain range; the entrance being through a gloomy
ravine, running above a subterranean stream, the banks of which are
covered with luxurious vegetation. Guacharo, as the name implies,
is the resort of immense quantities of night birds, and their harsh
notes resounding through its dismal recesses gave it the reputation,
with the ignorant natives, of being the abode of the devil and his
imps. For generations they have had traditions of dreadful ceremonies
and hideous orgies held there, and have believed that many wicked
persons have been seized by the imps, carried into and tortured in
those awful recesses. They would not enter the cavern for any earthly
consideration, sincerely believing that to do so would insure the
loss of their souls. Humboldt, so far as known, was the first man who
ever set foot within Guacharo; and he then succeeded, after unwearied
patience and perseverance, in inducing a certain number of natives to
accompany him as guides. They had not proceeded far, however, when
the clamor of the birds so terrified them that they fled, in spite of
every effort of the great naturalist to calm their superstitious fears.
Near Iletski, in Russia, is a freezing cave, so called because,
reversing the order of the seasons, it is partially filled with ice in
the summer, and altogether free from ice in the winter. Not a few of
the caverns of the old world have been found to contain the bones of
extinct species of animals. One of these, at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire,
was discovered about half a century ago, and in it were quantities
of remains of bears, lions, tigers, hyenas, and hippopotami, all of
orders that had passed away. It is presumed that the Kirkdale cave was
for a long while a vast den of hyenas, and that some great inundation
destroyed them and their kind.
[Sidenote: THE GREATEST CAVE IN THE WORLD.]