In a mine near Newcastle, many years ago, there was an inundation which enclosed ninety men in a place where it was impossible to relieve them. Several persons, who were working close to the shaft when the water entered, managed to escape, but they were very few in number. The accident occurred in May, and it was not until the following February that the bodies of the drowned men were recovered. With one exception all were recognized.
At another coal mine, which was worked on the sea-shore, and extended a distance of fifteen hundred yards under the Irish Sea, the manager, in his anxiety to produce a large quantity of coal, recklessly cut away some of the pillars which supported the roof. One day the whole neighborhood was alarmed with the report that the mine had fallen in. The commotion was so great that many persons on the shore observed the whirl of the sea directly over the spot where the water entered. A few of the laborers escaped, but thirty-six men and boys were drowned. The accident happened more than thirty years ago. The coal mine is now, and always must remain, under water, and the bodies have never been recovered.
DEATH BY SUFFOCATION.
Some of the most terrible mining accidents are those which occur in consequence of the closing of the shafts. Where a mine has two shafts there is little liability of such accidents; but where there is only a single shaft the danger is constantly threatening. The terrible calamity at Avondale, which is fresh in the minds of many readers, will be described elsewhere.
A similar accident at an English coal mine, a few years ago, was even more terrible in its results than the calamity at Avondale.
The beam of the pumping engine gave way, and killed five men who were at that moment coming up in the cage. One hundred and ninety-nine men and boys were then working under ground. The enormous beam of the engine weighed more than forty tons. In its fall it carried down all the timbers of the shaft, damaging the walls in several places. The rubbish and broken timbers accumulated in the shaft, and closed the only mode of egress for the miners. The beam and timberings cut off all connection between the interior of the mine and the outside world. The mine was furnished with ventilating furnaces, in which a large quantity of fuel was burning, and it was supposed that the imprisoned miners died of suffocation within twenty-four hours. Some of the men who were imprisoned tried to force an outlet, but they were unable to do so, and died in the effort.
Many accidents of this kind might be described. In the various coal-mining countries of the globe, they may be said, in the aggregate, to be of almost weekly occurrence. Where the owners of mines neglect or decline to provide their works with two entrances, it is imperatively necessary, for the protection of life, that the law should interfere, and compel them to do so.
ACCIDENT AT A FRENCH MINE.
A few years ago, at a mine in France, the engineer one day observed that the cages did not work properly in the guides. Fifty-six yards below the surface he discovered that the lining of the shaft deviated from the perpendicular. The joints and displacements were visible at several points. All the men, three hundred in number, were ordered to leave the mine.
Men went down the shaft to cover the openings, but the result was only to create fresh ones. For the next two days the lining of the shaft repeatedly cracked.