DEATH IN THE MINE.
On the 20th of September, 1873, about 3 o’clock in the morning, a second
fire and series of explosions occurred in the Yellow-Jacket mine, by
which six men lost their lives and several were seriously injured.
This fire originated in a winze on the 1300-foot level of the mine. The
winze was directly over the forge of an underground blacksmith’s shop,
for which it served as a chimney. The fire seems to have been burning in
the wood-work of this winze in a smouldering way, generating a quantity
of gas, and when an assistant blacksmith approached with a lighted
lantern in his hand, a heavy explosion occurred. A great quantity of
smoke rushed up the main shaft and hung in a black cloud over the works.
When this was seen, an alarm of fire was sounded on the surface, and
soon there were over two thousand persons collected about the mine.
Among the wives, children, and relations of those in the mines were
enacted the same heartrending scenes as on the occasion of the first
great fire in April, 1869. When the firemen reached the works, the fatal
mistake was made of throwing water down the shaft, thus driving the
smoke and gases back upon the men in the lower levels, and causing the
loss of life. This was stopped by Captain Taylor, superintendent of the
mine, as soon as he arrived on the ground.
About this time a man was sent to the old shaft of the mine, some
distance above on the hill, to see that all was right there. Doors were
shut down over the mouth of this shaft, and while the man was looking to
see that these were properly closed, he took the candle from his lantern
and held it over the shaft. As he did so, he saw a streak of fire flash
along up a post that stood in the middle of the shaft, between the
folding doors. Thinking that a quantity of lint on the corner of the
post had taken fire, he struck at it with his hat to blow it out. As he
did this, an explosion occurred that shook the whole town. A sheet of
flame darted from the mouth of the shaft, and the man, who was still
over it, hat in hand, was thrown backwards a distance of several feet.
This second explosion, which caused the solid earth to rock, not only
added greatly to the terror of those on the surface, but it sent sheets
of flame through all the mines as far as the Belcher, a distance of two
thousand feet. Men who were in the Crown Point mine at the moment,
stated that this fire seemed a solid mass that filled all the space
about them, and that it flashed toward and past them as swiftly as
lightning. At the same time the concussion which accompanied the flash
was so great as to knock them down and drive them along the ground for a
considerable distance. These streams of fire did not penetrate into the
cross-drifts, but darted straight southward along the main drifts and
galleries, owing to which fact, doubtless, several miners who happened
to be in cross-drifts, escaped being killed or seriously injured. To add
to the terrors of the situation, all of the lights were blown out by the
explosions, and the lower levels of the mines were everywhere in total
darkness.
Those who lost their lives died from asphyxia, while those who were
injured were burned by the sheets of flame that darted through the
several mines. The fire burned and stripped the shirts entirely off the
backs of some of the men, and those who were touched by any part of the
flame lost their whiskers, eyebrows, and the greater part of their hair.
There being several hundred men in the mines, the utmost consternation
prevailed when the first explosion occurred, and the smell of smoke and
gases—a smell well remembered by the old miners—swept through the lower
levels; but the work of hoisting these men to the surface was performed
at the several shafts with safety, precision, and almost lightning
swiftness. Notwithstanding the excitement that prevailed all about them,
the engineers never for a single instant lost their presence of mind.
They answered every tap of the signal-bells as promptly, and kept their
eyes as steadfastly fixed upon the marks on their cables, as though
nothing were wrong below. The cages and “giraffes” were rushed up and
down the shafts and inclines with their living freight at a rate of
speed which under ordinary circumstances would have been simply
terrific. But by no means was this work too rapidly performed to suit
the men who were fleeing up from the fiery furnace of the regions below.
It luckily happened that the winze in which this fire raged was
surrounded on all sides by solid rock, therefore when the timbers it
contained were consumed, the fire died out. The man who at first
approached the smouldering winze with his lantern, was found lying dead
at a distance of about two hundred feet from it; having been
asphyxiated. Men who die of asphyxia in the mines, look like living men
if brought to the surface at any time within a few hours after life is
extinct. Their cheeks are flushed and roseate, and their bodies are as
limp as though they were still alive. With their eyes closed, they
appear to be men in a fever, lying in a sound sleep. It is a painless
death. Several miners who were brought to the surface in an unconscious
state, and who would no doubt have died in a few minutes had they been
left in the mine, assert that a sensation of faintness was all they
experienced, they did not even remember falling to the ground; but all
are very sick after regaining their senses.
As it would have been impossible for the small fire in the winze to have
generated such immense quantities of inflammable gases as must have been
consumed in the two explosions that occurred during this last fire in
the Yellow-Jacket mine, many men are of the opinion that a small
quantity of the gas from pine-wood mingled with gases already in the
mines, rendered the whole explosive. In this instance some such
accidental compound must have been formed. Common air being mingled with
the gases probably had much to do with causing the explosions.
On the morning of May 24th, 1874, the hoisting works of the Succor
Mining Company, near Silver City, were destroyed by fire, and two miners
who were at work in the shaft at the time, lost their lives. The fire
was kindled by some cartridges of giant-powder that had been left lying
on the boiler. The cartridges did not explode, but simply burned. They
were about a dozen in number, enough to have blown the works to atoms,
had they exploded. They burned very rapidly, throwing up a fountain of
fire. The flames were intensely bright, and wherever the jets struck
they set fire to the wood-work. The roof and all that part of the works
about the boilers were on fire in an instant.
The only men in the works were the engineer and the carman. Two miners
were at work at the bottom of the shaft, five hundred feet below the
surface. The engineer and carman shook the cable attached to the
hoisting tub, which was at the bottom of the shaft, as a signal for the
men below to come up; also, shouted to them, but could not make them
understand their danger. Soon the two men were driven out of the
building, which was speedily consumed.
Two days later, when the fire in the timbers of the upper part of the
shaft had been extinguished, a windlass was rigged and men were lowered
to see how things looked below. It was not expected that the bodies of
the dead miners would be found, as much earth had caved from the top of
the shaft, and its bottom was supposed to be filled to the depth of
twenty or thirty feet with broken timbers, rocks, and earth. Contrary to
the general expectation, the men had not been lowered a great distance
into the shaft before they signalled those above to stop; they then
shouted up the shaft that the bodies were found. A large crowd had
collected about the shaft, and when this unexpected report came up, the
excitement was great.
The bodies of the poor fellows were discovered at the pump station—a
recess some feet square in one side of the shaft—to which point they had
ascended by almost superhuman exertions. This pump station was two
hundred and sixty-five feet above the bottom of the shaft, and the whole
of this great distance the men had climbed in their desperate struggle
for life, with nothing to cling to but the slight cracks between the
timbers walling the sides. Considering the small and uncertain hold
afforded by the timbers of the shaft, their climbing to such a height
was a feat bordering on the miraculous, and one which could only have
been performed by young and active men, as both were. Both men had died
from asphyxia. Neither their bodies nor their clothing were scorched.
In the pump station they were protected from the falling brands and
beams from the burning building, and there they had remained till
suffocated by the deadly gases that settled down into the shaft. The
face of one of the men was rosy and as natural as in life, while that of
the other, who lay in the outer part of the station, was black and
frightfully swollen.
An inquest was held, and the verdict of the Coroner’s jury was that the
men who lost their lives by the fire, James Billings and James Rickard
“came to their death by suffocation caused by the burning of the
Succor hoisting-works and part of the shaft, said fire having been
caused by the combustion of giant-powder which was kept on the top of
one of the boilers, and we strongly deprecate the custom prevalent in
many mines of keeping giant-powder on the boilers about the works.”
And well they might find fault with this practice of cooking
giant-powder on the tops of boilers; also, they might mildly suggest
that the custom of thawing frozen giant-powder and nitro-glycerine on
stoves and at the forges of blacksmith’s shops is a thing not to be
encouraged. Several, however, have prospected about until they have
found this out for themselves. It is now probably well known in the
other world, as a few of those best informed on the point have gone
there.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: OFFICE OF THE CONSOLIDATED VIRGINIA MINE.]