Along the gallery came a line of strange-eyed and humped figures, inhuman of appearance, wearing the newly devised respirators by which men can work in the most vitiated air without harm.
There are several types of these "gas masks," most of them based on the principle of carrying compressed oxygen for breathing, and bearing chambers containing chemicals which absorb the carbonic acid gas and moisture of the exhaled breath. These masks proved their utility at the great explosion at Courrières in 1906, the greatest mining disaster on record, when 1100 miners were killed.
Into the Poison-Filled Air!
Rescue-Crew of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, equipped with oxygen-breathing apparatus, facing the deadly "damps."
Courtesy of U. S. Bureau of Mines.
U. S. Bureau of Mines Rescue Car.