CHAPTER XXIX.

MINING FATALITIES.

Many miners are killed by thoughtlessly running cars into the main working shafts of the mines, when no cage is standing in the shaft. They probably suppose that a cage is standing in the shaft ready to receive the car, and, without looking, push it into the open mouth of the shaft.

Accidents of this kind generally happen at the stations of the underground levels. It almost invariably happens when a carman pushes his car into the mouth of a shaft, that he is pulled in after it. The sudden pitching forward and downward of the car, upon the top of the rear end of which he has hold with both hands, causes him to so far lose his balance that he can never regain it, and down the shaft he goes after his car, dashed from side to side against the timbers and planking of the compartments of the shaft into which he has fallen, till the bottom is reached, hundreds of feet below.

The effect of a fall through a vertical shaft 1500 feet in depth is much the same as though a man were shot from the mouth of a cannon and thrown a distance of 500 yards. Mount Davidson stands about 1500 feet higher than Virginia City, and to fall down a shaft 1500 feet in depth, is much the same as would be a fall from the peak of that mountain (if such a thing were possible) into one of the streets of the town. The body of a man falling a distance of one thousand feet or more, emits towards the latter part of its course, a humming sound, somewhat similar to that heard from a passing cannon-ball of large size.

A few instances will serve to show the effect of a fall of this character upon the human body: A miner who was ascending the Imperial-Empire[B] shaft, from the 900-foot level, accompanied by six companions, when within one hundred and fifty feet of the surface, spoke of feeling faint. He had hardly spoken before he reeled and fell. As he was falling, his friends caught him by the coat, but as the garment was only thrown loosely over his shoulders, it pulled off, and he fell off the cage and to the bottom of the shaft—a distance of 750 feet. The cage was promptly lowered again and search made for the body, which was found to have fallen into the “sump” or well at the bottom of the shaft. As the sump contained a considerable quantity of water the efforts to fish up the body were not successful, until a good deal of bailing with the hoisting tank (a large tank with a valve in its bottom) had been done.

Footnote B:

This is not the name of a single mining company, else it would be as idiotic as it sounds, but the partnership shaft is owned by the “Empire” company and the “Imperial” company—hence the name.

When the body was at last recovered, it was found to be shockingly mangled. The left foot was pulled off at the ankle joint, the left hand at the wrist, the skull was crushed to pieces, and the bones of the right leg were crushed into small fragments. The face was but slightly disfigured. The left foot was found hanging by the torn tendons, to a timber some 200 feet below where the man fell from the cage. The left hand fell into the sump, and was not found.

Many lives are lost in this way. Men coming up from the heated regions below, when the thermometer indicates a temperature of from 110 to 120 degrees, faint on reaching the cold air at, or near, the top of the shaft. Strangers visiting the mines should always mention the fact to those with them on the cage, if they feel the slightest symptom of vertigo or faintness, as they may then be properly supported.

On one occasion when I was in the Consolidated Virginia mine, a foreman who had gone up with a cage-load of men, some of whom were visitors to the mine, informed us on his return that one of the party just conducted to the surface had made a narrow escape. He said, that just at the moment of reaching the surface, the man fainted, and fell upon the floor of the cage. Had he fallen before, while the cage was in motion, we should probably have had him down with our party at the foot of the shaft, 1500 feet below, some minutes before the foreman returned. As our party got on board the cage, I said that a man who felt the slightest degree of uneasiness in the region of the stomach, or of faintness, should at once mention the fact. We were within about 200 feet of the top of the shaft when a gentleman from San Francisco said:— “I am beginning to feel sick!” Instantly two or three person took firm hold upon his arms and the collar of his coat, and thus held him until the surface was reached. At the surface he fainted, and a man under each arm carried him into the dressing-room, where he soon revived.

The last time I visited this mine I had but just changed my clothes, and stepped outside of the building, when a miner fainted at the top of the shaft and fell to the bottom.

His head was torn off, his arms and legs were torn off, and all that was left was his trunk, in which not a whole bone remained. The trunk was rolled up in a piece of canvas and brought to the surface, while pieces of his arms, legs, and head were scraped up and sent up in candle-boxes.

In falling, the body bounded from side to side against the walls of the shaft, and, in passing the 1400-foot station, a piece of one of the bones of a leg, with some flesh adhering, flew out of the compartments and fell on the station floor. He was a French Canadian, and had just purchased a lot of trinkets to send home to his wife and family by a friend who was going to leave for Canada the next day.

Just as they were bringing up the remains in the canvas and candle-boxes, this friend arrived to get the trinkets which he was to carry to Canada.

When cages are passing stations, men sometimes put their heads out into the shaft and have them crushed to atoms or pulled entirely off. In June, 1874, a miner was instantly killed by having his head caught by a descending cage at the Crown Point mine. He was at the time in the act of pulling the bell-wire at the station at the 1000-foot level. As the man went to pull the wire to stop the cage, a friend who was with him turned to a box to get a candle. When he turned again he saw his companion going down with the cage. The cage passed down just below the level of the station, and stopped, having struck the head of the man who had fallen being wedged between it and the side of the shaft. The man left at the station, thinking his friend had gone to the bottom of the shaft, rang up the cage (a double-decker), when the body came up with it, the legs still fast.

In August, 1873, at the Chollar-Potosi mine, a miner ran an empty car into the shaft, and was pulled in after it, falling a distance of 890 feet. In the sump were found floating portions of the shattered car but the body of the man had sunk to the bottom of the water. By the use of grappling-irons the body, mangled almost out of all semblance to a man, was finally recovered. The whole of the head was gone, down to the underjaw, both legs and both arms were broken in dozens of places, and, indeed, not a whole bone was left in any part of the body. So torn and mangled was it—so nearly reduced to pulp—that it was found necessary to roll it in a blanket, and lash it to a piece of plank, in order to get it up to the surface. In pulling, the man was dashed from side to side of the shaft, striking against the timbers, now on this side and now on that, tearing all the clothing from his person. Shreds of clothing were found sticking to the shaft timbers in several places. In one place one of his gloves was found lying on a timber, and in another place hung a piece of one of his socks, containing a toe that had been torn from the foot. The pump brought up bloody water for a considerable time after the accident, showing that the whole contents of the sump had been crimsoned.

Although the ingenuity of the many mechanics about the mines is constantly exercised in devising means for the prevention of accidents, and although there are now in operation a great number of useful inventions of this kind, yet men continue to find ways of being wounded and killed never before dreamed of. In all of the leading mines safety-cages are in use; also, safety incline-cars, or “giraffes,” and these have saved scores of lives. With the safety-cage or giraffe in use the miners do not fall to the bottom when a cable breaks. The safety apparatus instantly comes in play, and the cage or giraffe is at once stopped, at the point of ascent or descent at which the cable parted.

In all the hoisting works there is a strong cover of latticework over the mouth of each compartment of the main shaft, to prevent men from stumbling or thoughtlessly walking into it. When the cage comes up the shaft, the iron shield or “bonnet” on its top picks up this cover, and holds it up out of the way, the floor of the cage meantime filling the mouth of the compartment, and guarding it in place of the cover; when the cage descends it leaves the cover behind on the opening through which it passed down, somewhat like the cunning little animal that pulls the door of its hole in after it when it retreats into the ground.

With all these provisions for protecting life and limb, accidents continue, and must ever continue to happen, as there are so many things against which neither the owners of mines nor the miners themselves can guard. In case of a cable parting, for instance, the men who are on the cage are protected by the safety apparatus, but the upper part of the cable is liable to spring backwards and kill the engineer standing at his engine fifty or sixty feet in the rear of the shaft, quite at the opposite end of the building.

A heavy cable of steel wire whipping back in this way, will cut a broad road through the whole length of the ceiling of a building, taking off large joists and beams as though they were so many bars of soap. Huge fly-wheels of many tons’ weight occasionally burst asunder, tearing the sides and roof of the works to pieces, killing or wounding all who may be in the way of the flying fragments; boilers sometimes explode, and leave hardly a vestige of the works in which they stood; men are caught in the cog-wheels of the machinery; and, in short, there is no safety either above or below ground.

Below the surface, however, the accidents are most numerous and terrible. In the examples given by means of which to illustrate the fearful velocity attained by the human body in falling through a space of from 1000 to 1500 feet, it may be thought that I have selected the most shocking I could find; but such is not the case. It is the usual experience that in falling such a distance, the hand, foot, or head of a man coming in contact with a timber toward the bottom of a shaft, is cut or torn off. It is by no means unusual for the remains of men to be collected at the bottom of a shaft and sent to the surface in candle-boxes; to such an extent are the bodies and limbs of many who fall into shafts rent and scattered. On one occasion of this kind, when the jury of inquest had finished hearing the testimony and were sitting silent round the fragmentary remains, considering their verdict, a man came hurriedly in, with a candle-box under his arm, approached the foreman, and said to him in a reverent tone, “Wait a moment, please—I’ve got some more of him.”

[Illustration: THE PILGRIM’S LODGINGS.]

Speaking of undertakers, reminds me of a little story: One night a Virginia City policeman while going his round, found an inebriated “pilgrim” reposing on a bench in front of an undertaking establishment. The officer shook the fellow until he awoke him from his drunken slumber, and then explained to him that unless he found other and less public quarters he should be obliged to escort him to the station-house. The pilgrim sat up, and rubbing his eyes, explained to the officer that he was a stranger in the town; that he had but fifty cents in his pocket, and, the night being warm, he had concluded to sleep out of doors, and save his money to pay for a breakfast the next morning. Not being a hard-hearted man the officer told the fellow that he might finish his sleep, provided he would get up and move out of sight before people were astir in the streets.

Passing the same way, in the course of an hour or two, the officer found that his man had rolled off the bench, and was lying at full length in the empty case of a coffin that was standing at the edge of the sidewalk, close beside the bench. Rousing his “pilgrim” again, the officer told him he must “get out of that!”

“Out o’ what?” growled the fellow.

“Why, out of that coffin!” said the officer—though it was only one of those coffin-shaped cases in which coffins are shipped.

“Who’s in a coffin?” asked the fellow, evidently becoming somewhat interested.

“Why, you are!” said the officer.

“Not if I know it, I ain’t!” said the pilgrim.

“Well, I know it,” said the officer sharply, “and if you don’t get out of it pretty shortly it will be the last of you. Don’t you know that if these undertakers get up in the morning and find you snoozing away there, they’ll clap a lid on that coffin, screw it down, hustle you out to the graveyard and bury you, then send in a bill and make the county pay your funeral expenses. It’s just one of the tricks that our Washoe undertakers like to play!”

Crawling out of his narrow quarters, the fellow rubbed his eyes and gazed at the coffin-shaped case for some time, then said:

“I’d like to know what sort of a dod-rotted set of undertakers you’ve got out here in this country, anyway, that go and set rows of coffins ’longside the sidewalks, fur to ketch corpses?” and without waiting for an answer, he shuffled away to find safer quarters.

[Illustration: VIRGINIA CITY, NEVADA.]