Although this fire occurred in October, 1874, in May, 1875, when a new shaft was being constructed, great masses of rocks, still almost at a white heat were encountered by the workmen. These lay at the bottom of the old shaft, and there was no burning timber, charcoal, or fire among them, but they were so hot as to set on fire the timbers the miners were trying to set up in the drift run by them, and in order to work at all it was found necessary to carry a line of hose into the place and play a stream of water upon the rocks.
When we find so small a mass of rocks as can be contained in the bottom of a shaft, remaining red-hot for eight months, should we be incredulous on being assured by men of science that the centre of the earth, once a molten mass of rock, still remains in a molten state after untold ages?
CHAPTER XXVII.
WAR IN THE MINE.
Little difficulty has ever been experienced from firedamp, in the mines along the Comstock lode. Firedamp is a gas which is more frequently generated in, and more strictly confined to, coal mines than to any others; yet in a few instances it has been found to exist in mines on the Comstock. It is probably generated by decaying pine-timber.
On one occasion, a mining superintendent of Gold Hill went into an old drift of the Segregated Belcher mine, and while passing along it, happened to lift his candle to its roof, to examine the rock. Much to his astonishment, he set fire to a stratum of carburetted hydrogen (firedamp), which produced a brilliant flash that extended the whole length of the drift. Some miners working in the Gould & Curry mine on one occasion had a similar, but much more lively, bit of experience. On tapping an old drift in that mine quite an explosion occurred, though no harm was done, further than the singeing of the hair and whiskers of the astonished miners.
In the early days of Washoe it occasionally happened that adjoining mining companies drifted into each other’s works, far below the surface. On such occasions there was war down in the bowels of the earth. In case pistols and similar weapons were not used, the battles were fought after the Chinese stink-pot plan. Each company sought to smoke the other out. The latest instance in which these underground amenities of the amiable miner were indulged in, was in May, 1874, when the Kossuth and the Alhambra folks ceased to admire each other.
The works of the two companies made an unexpected connection several feet below the surface. As to what passages at arms may have occurred in and about the breach below when it was first opened, those of the surface world are not informed. However, the Alhambra folks presently smelt something burning. They were not long in doubt as to the nature of the fumigation. The odor wafted to them was not that of sandal-wood, neither of frankincense nor myrrh. That which reached them was the hot, pungent, stifling smoke and gas that told of burning pitch-pine. The Kossuth folks had secretly prepared and lighted in a drift of their mine, connecting with the Alhambra shaft, a large bonfire of pine-wood. There being a draught into and up the shaft named, the men working therein soon found themselves in danger of suffocation, and made all possible haste to reach the surface.
The superintendent of the Alhambra mine narrowly escaped losing his life. When he was hoisted to the top of the shaft, some hundreds of feet, he was asphyxiated to the verge of insensibility, and fell back, but luckily caught at the edge of some planks and held on long enough to give those standing near time to snatch him away. Had he fallen to the bottom of the shaft, it would have been certain death, for had he not been dashed to pieces by the fall, the smoke and gases ascending the shaft would have prevented his friends from going down to his assistance, and he must have inevitably perished.
Turning the tables on the Kossuthites was now tried by the men of the Alhambra. They covered the mouth of their shaft with planks and wet blankets, in order, if possible, to force the smoke back into the Kossuth mine. The smoke still appearing to gather in their shaft, several large casks of water were got in readiness, the planks and blankets were raised, and a flood of water turned suddenly down. To what extent this experiment discommoded the Kossuthites was never made public, but the indications were that they received at least a temporary hoist from their own petard, as, shortly after, their numbers above ground were observed to have increased.