History of the big bonanza

by Dan De Quille

Sometimes our conductor is hailed by some one at a station as we dart past. We hear the voice, but distinguish no words. The conductor, however, has understood, and makes answer. As he replies, we drop away from the sound of his voice at such a rapid rate that his words are drawn out into sounds which we can hardly understand, though we are standing by his side.[side.] The answer, which is left scattered along up the shaft, is finally gathered in at the station for which it was intended, and is there put together and understood.

When we have descended to such a depth that from one thousand to twelve hundred feet of cable have been paid out from the reel above, we begin to experience quite a novel sensation. This is the “spring” of the cable.

Most persons have observed the very active bobbing motion of a toy ball suspended from an india-rubber string. The motion of our cage, hanging at the end of the cable, is much the same. The less one has of this peculiar motion the more he enjoys it. When this motion sets in, we at once begin to speculate in regard to the probable amount of “stretch” to be found in a first-class steel-wire cable—how far it may stretch before reaching the breaking point. It may be no more than 500 feet to the bottom of the shaft, but we feel that we do not care to risk falling even that short distance.

However, should the cable really break, there would be no danger, we should not fall. Attached to the upper part of the cage is a safety-apparatus designed expressly to prevent accidents of this nature. At the instant that the cable parted there would be released powerful springs which would throw out on each side of the shaft an eccentric, toothed wheel. These wheels, biting into the guides on each side, would instantly stop and hold the cage, block it fast in the shaft, as the wheels are of such a shape that the greater the weight and downward pressure upon the cage, the tighter they hold. In case of the cable breaking, we should not fall an inch, perhaps not half an inch—thanks to that life-saving invention, the safety-cage!

When the safety-cage was first introduced on the Comstock, I had the pleasure of assisting in making a test of the efficacy of the safety-apparatus at the Savage mine. We attached the cage to the iron cable by means of a large hempen rope.

This done, the superintendent and a gentleman present, who was in search of excitement, got upon the cage, and we lowered them into the mouth of the shaft, which was 1,000 feet in depth. We at the surface, who were conducting the experiment, then asked the superintendent and his companion if they were ready to be “launched into eternity,” and receiving an affirmative reply, a brawny-armed miner, standing ready with a big broad-ax, severed the rope at a single blow. The cage dropped less than an inch, we above were all glad the experiment was over.

Had the safety apparatus failed to work, we at the surface would doubtless have all been summoned as witnesses when the coroner held his inquest.

In case of a train of railroad cars getting off the track, we never know where we shall bring up; we may go over an embankment or may be dragged against a point of rocks, but when a cable breaks while we are descending a shaft, we stop exactly where we happen to be when the accident occurs. Thus, as the sailor in a storm at sea pities the poor wretches who are on shore, so may the miner pity those persons above ground who travel on railroads.

In former times, however, previous to the introduction of the safety-cage in the Comstock mines, the breaking of a cable was an accident more dreaded and more dreadful than almost any other. There was no dodging when a cable parted. All who were on the cage must go to the bottom of the shaft. There the cage would be torn to pieces and driven through platforms of plank three or four inches in thickness into the “sump” or well of the shaft, where all who were not killed outright, were drowned.

Whether half a dozen men or a dozen were on the cage, it nearly always happened that all were killed. If any did in any instance escape, it was in such a horribly mangled condition that they were maimed for life. No wonder, then, that the miner every day of his life, and as often as he goes up and down the great shafts, blesses in his heart the inventor of the safety-cage!