MINING FATALITIES.
Many miners are killed by thoughtlessly running cars into the main
working shafts of the mines, when no cage is standing in the shaft. They
probably suppose that a cage is standing in the shaft ready to receive
the car, and, without looking, push it into the open mouth of the shaft.
Accidents of this kind generally happen at the stations of the
underground levels. It almost invariably happens when a carman pushes
his car into the mouth of a shaft, that he is pulled in after it. The
sudden pitching forward and downward of the car, upon the top of the
rear end of which he has hold with both hands, causes him to so far lose
his balance that he can never regain it, and down the shaft he goes
after his car, dashed from side to side against the timbers and planking
of the compartments of the shaft into which he has fallen, till the
bottom is reached, hundreds of feet below.
The effect of a fall through a vertical shaft 1500 feet in depth is much
the same as though a man were shot from the mouth of a cannon and thrown
a distance of 500 yards. Mount Davidson stands about 1500 feet higher
than Virginia City, and to fall down a shaft 1500 feet in depth, is much
the same as would be a fall from the peak of that mountain (if such a
thing were possible) into one of the streets of the town. The body of a
man falling a distance of one thousand feet or more, emits towards the
latter part of its course, a humming sound, somewhat similar to that
heard from a passing cannon-ball of large size.
A few instances will serve to show the effect of a fall of this
character upon the human body: A miner who was ascending the
Imperial-Empire[B] shaft, from the 900-foot level, accompanied by six
companions, when within one hundred and fifty feet of the surface, spoke
of feeling faint. He had hardly spoken before he reeled and fell. As he
was falling, his friends caught him by the coat, but as the garment was
only thrown loosely over his shoulders, it pulled off, and he fell off
the cage and to the bottom of the shaft—a distance of 750 feet. The cage
was promptly lowered again and search made for the body, which was found
to have fallen into the “sump” or well at the bottom of the shaft. As
the sump contained a considerable quantity of water the efforts to fish
up the body were not successful, until a good deal of bailing with the
hoisting tank (a large tank with a valve in its bottom) had been done.
Footnote B:
This is not the name of a single mining company, else it would be as
idiotic as it sounds, but the partnership shaft is owned by the
“Empire” company and the “Imperial” company—hence the name.
When the body was at last recovered, it was found to be shockingly
mangled. The left foot was pulled off at the ankle joint, the left hand
at the wrist, the skull was crushed to pieces, and the bones of the
right leg were crushed into small fragments. The face was but slightly
disfigured. The left foot was found hanging by the torn tendons, to a
timber some 200 feet below where the man fell from the cage. The left
hand fell into the sump, and was not found.
Many lives are lost in this way. Men coming up from the heated regions
below, when the thermometer indicates a temperature of from 110 to 120
degrees, faint on reaching the cold air at, or near, the top of the
shaft. Strangers visiting the mines should always mention the fact to
those with them on the cage, if they feel the slightest symptom of
vertigo or faintness, as they may then be properly supported.
On one occasion when I was in the Consolidated Virginia mine, a foreman
who had gone up with a cage-load of men, some of whom were visitors to
the mine, informed us on his return that one of the party just conducted
to the surface had made a narrow escape. He said, that just at the
moment of reaching the surface, the man fainted, and fell upon the floor
of the cage. Had he fallen before, while the cage was in motion, we
should probably have had him down with our party at the foot of the
shaft, 1500 feet below, some minutes before the foreman returned. As our
party got on board the cage, I said that a man who felt the slightest
degree of uneasiness in the region of the stomach, or of faintness,
should at once mention the fact. We were within about 200 feet of the
top of the shaft when a gentleman from San Francisco said:— “I am
beginning to feel sick!” Instantly two or three person took firm hold
upon his arms and the collar of his coat, and thus held him until the
surface was reached. At the surface he fainted, and a man under each arm
carried him into the dressing-room, where he soon revived.
The last time I visited this mine I had but just changed my clothes, and
stepped outside of the building, when a miner fainted at the top of the
shaft and fell to the bottom.
His head was torn off, his arms and legs were torn off, and all that was
left was his trunk, in which not a whole bone remained. The trunk was
rolled up in a piece of canvas and brought to the surface, while pieces
of his arms, legs, and head were scraped up and sent up in candle-boxes.
In falling, the body bounded from side to side against the walls of the
shaft, and, in passing the 1400-foot station, a piece of one of the
bones of a leg, with some flesh adhering, flew out of the compartments
and fell on the station floor. He was a French Canadian, and had just
purchased a lot of trinkets to send home to his wife and family by a
friend who was going to leave for Canada the next day.
Just as they were bringing up the remains in the canvas and
candle-boxes, this friend arrived to get the trinkets which he was to
carry to Canada.
When cages are passing stations, men sometimes put their heads out into
the shaft and have them crushed to atoms or pulled entirely off. In
June, 1874, a miner was instantly killed by having his head caught by a
descending cage at the Crown Point mine. He was at the time in the act
of pulling the bell-wire at the station at the 1000-foot level. As the
man went to pull the wire to stop the cage, a friend who was with him
turned to a box to get a candle. When he turned again he saw his
companion going down with the cage. The cage passed down just below the
level of the station, and stopped, having struck the head of the man who
had fallen being wedged between it and the side of the shaft. The man
left at the station, thinking his friend had gone to the bottom of the
shaft, rang up the cage (a double-decker), when the body came up with
it, the legs still fast.
In August, 1873, at the Chollar-Potosi mine, a miner ran an empty car
into the shaft, and was pulled in after it, falling a distance of 890
feet. In the sump were found floating portions of the shattered car but
the body of the man had sunk to the bottom of the water. By the use of
grappling-irons the body, mangled almost out of all semblance to a man,
was finally recovered. The whole of the head was gone, down to the
underjaw, both legs and both arms were broken in dozens of places, and,
indeed, not a whole bone was left in any part of the body. So torn and
mangled was it—so nearly reduced to pulp—that it was found necessary to
roll it in a blanket, and lash it to a piece of plank, in order to get
it up to the surface. In pulling, the man was dashed from side to side
of the shaft, striking against the timbers, now on this side and now on
that, tearing all the clothing from his person. Shreds of clothing were
found sticking to the shaft timbers in several places. In one place one
of his gloves was found lying on a timber, and in another place hung a
piece of one of his socks, containing a toe that had been torn from the
foot. The pump brought up bloody water for a considerable time after the
accident, showing that the whole contents of the sump had been
crimsoned.
Although the ingenuity of the many mechanics about the mines is
constantly exercised in devising means for the prevention of accidents,
and although there are now in operation a great number of useful
inventions of this kind, yet men continue to find ways of being wounded
and killed never before dreamed of. In all of the leading mines
safety-cages are in use; also, safety incline-cars, or “giraffes,” and
these have saved scores of lives. With the safety-cage or giraffe in use
the miners do not fall to the bottom when a cable breaks. The safety
apparatus instantly comes in play, and the cage or giraffe is at once
stopped, at the point of ascent or descent at which the cable parted.
In all the hoisting works there is a strong cover of latticework over
the mouth of each compartment of the main shaft, to prevent men from
stumbling or thoughtlessly walking into it. When the cage comes up the
shaft, the iron shield or “bonnet” on its top picks up this cover, and
holds it up out of the way, the floor of the cage meantime filling the
mouth of the compartment, and guarding it in place of the cover; when
the cage descends it leaves the cover behind on the opening through
which it passed down, somewhat like the cunning little animal that pulls
the door of its hole in after it when it retreats into the ground.
With all these provisions for protecting life and limb, accidents
continue, and must ever continue to happen, as there are so many things
against which neither the owners of mines nor the miners themselves can
guard. In case of a cable parting, for instance, the men who are on the
cage are protected by the safety apparatus, but the upper part of the
cable is liable to spring backwards and kill the engineer standing at
his engine fifty or sixty feet in the rear of the shaft, quite at the
opposite end of the building.
A heavy cable of steel wire whipping back in this way, will cut a broad
road through the whole length of the ceiling of a building, taking off
large joists and beams as though they were so many bars of soap. Huge
fly-wheels of many tons’ weight occasionally burst asunder, tearing the
sides and roof of the works to pieces, killing or wounding all who may
be in the way of the flying fragments; boilers sometimes explode, and
leave hardly a vestige of the works in which they stood; men are caught
in the cog-wheels of the machinery; and, in short, there is no safety
either above or below ground.
Below the surface, however, the accidents are most numerous and
terrible. In the examples given by means of which to illustrate the
fearful velocity attained by the human body in falling through a space
of from 1000 to 1500 feet, it may be thought that I have selected the
most shocking I could find; but such is not the case. It is the usual
experience that in falling such a distance, the hand, foot, or head of a
man coming in contact with a timber toward the bottom of a shaft, is cut
or torn off. It is by no means unusual for the remains of men to be
collected at the bottom of a shaft and sent to the surface in
candle-boxes; to such an extent are the bodies and limbs of many who
fall into shafts rent and scattered. On one occasion of this kind, when
the jury of inquest had finished hearing the testimony and were sitting
silent round the fragmentary remains, considering their verdict, a man
came hurriedly in, with a candle-box under his arm, approached the
foreman, and said to him in a reverent tone, “Wait a moment, please—I’ve
got some more of him.”
[Illustration: THE PILGRIM’S LODGINGS.]
Speaking of undertakers, reminds me of a little story: One night a
Virginia City policeman while going his round, found an inebriated
“pilgrim” reposing on a bench in front of an undertaking establishment.
The officer shook the fellow until he awoke him from his drunken
slumber, and then explained to him that unless he found other and less
public quarters he should be obliged to escort him to the station-house.
The pilgrim sat up, and rubbing his eyes, explained to the officer that
he was a stranger in the town; that he had but fifty cents in his
pocket, and, the night being warm, he had concluded to sleep out of
doors, and save his money to pay for a breakfast the next morning. Not
being a hard-hearted man the officer told the fellow that he might
finish his sleep, provided he would get up and move out of sight before
people were astir in the streets.
Passing the same way, in the course of an hour or two, the officer found
that his man had rolled off the bench, and was lying at full length in
the empty case of a coffin that was standing at the edge of the
sidewalk, close beside the bench. Rousing his “pilgrim” again, the
officer told him he must “get out of that!”
“Out o’ what?” growled the fellow.
“Why, out of that coffin!” said the officer—though it was only one of
those coffin-shaped cases in which coffins are shipped.
“Who’s in a coffin?” asked the fellow, evidently becoming somewhat
interested.
“Why, you are!” said the officer.
“Not if I know it, I ain’t!” said the pilgrim.
“Well, I know it,” said the officer sharply, “and if you don’t get out
of it pretty shortly it will be the last of you. Don’t you know that if
these undertakers get up in the morning and find you snoozing away
there, they’ll clap a lid on that coffin, screw it down, hustle you out
to the graveyard and bury you, then send in a bill and make the county
pay your funeral expenses. It’s just one of the tricks that our Washoe
undertakers like to play!”
Crawling out of his narrow quarters, the fellow rubbed his eyes and
gazed at the coffin-shaped case for some time, then said:
“I’d like to know what sort of a dod-rotted set of undertakers you’ve
got out here in this country, anyway, that go and set rows of coffins
’longside the sidewalks, fur to ketch corpses?” and without waiting for
an answer, he shuffled away to find safer quarters.
[Illustration: VIRGINIA CITY, NEVADA.]