KIMBERLEY,
26th August, 1908.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

I, the undersigned, hereby certify that the account of my experience at Wesselton Mine, Kimberley, Cape Colony, as written by Mr. C. A. O. Duggan, is true and correct in every detail, and, further, I hereby give to Mr. C. A. O. Duggan the full and exclusive right to publish the particulars and account above referred to in any newspaper, periodical or magazine he may choose.

Charles Wood AS WITNESSES:— KIMBERLEY, S. A. 26th August, 1908. JJ Armstrong BW Freislich

The abovementioned copyright of Mr. Charles Wood’s experience at Wesselton Mine, Kimberley, C. C. is hereby given to the Proprietors of the “Wide World Magazine”, London, England.

C.A.O. Duggan

MR. WOOD’S SIGNED STATEMENT VOUCHING FOR THE ACCURACY OF THIS STORY.
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Dazed and just able to realize my terrible situation, I gasped for breath, and, although quite oblivious of the nature and extent of my injuries, I was vaguely conscious that I was still alive, and that for the second time in a few minutes my life had been miraculously preserved. Securely pinned down by the tremendous weight of the “ground,” I lay unable to move, and after making a feeble and vain effort to shout for assistance, I gave up my futile struggle to free my aching body and sank down from sheer exhaustion, staring vacantly in the semi-darkness at an enormous, treacherous-looking boulder that had lodged a few inches above me, and which appeared likely to find a fresh resting-place on my unprotected head at any moment.

For an instant there was a death-like stillness. Nearly distracted by the awful suspense, I lay helpless in the great iron skip, expecting each instant to feel the peculiar jerk of the hauling-rope that would mean the commencement of my lightning upward journey to the headgear on the surface, nearly six hundred feet above.