CONTINUED HIS EXPERIMENTS.
Among the adventures which befell a young engineer a short time back, was the perilous one of falling down the shaft of a mine. The shaft was not in use during the winter, but as it was essential to have it in order before spring, the young engineer determined to examine it.
There were no ladders to this particular shaft, and he elected to be lowered by the windlass. It was necessary, therefore, to hold on tightly to the rope, keeping one foot in a loop at the end. He settled himself firmly and swung off, the rope in his right hand and a candle in his left.
The shaft was about three hundred feet deep, and he was halfway down when he leaned forward to examine the wall of the shaft, and as he did so his foot shot out from the noose. It was coated with ice. The candle was jerked out of his left hand, while his right slipped down the icy rope like lightning, and closed on it with a death grip.
Then he felt himself swinging by one hand to the end of the rope and instinctively reached up to the loop with the other, only to find it a smooth coat of ice which gave scarcely any hold. He could never cling there long enough to be hauled back to the mouth of the shaft, even if he[Pg 53] should succeed in making the men hear his cry for help.
The shaft was pitch dark, and it was therefore impossible to judge his rate of descent, as he hung—literally between life and death—with every faculty strained to the one act of clinging to the rope.
His hands were numb with cold and little by little he felt them slipping. Another moment and he went.
But not far, for when he let go he was not three feet from the bottom of the shaft. All the same he felt decidedly shaky as he groped about for his lost candle, which he found, and then coolly completed the exploration for which he had descended.