Boy With the U.S. Miners

by William Henry Giles Kingston

  CHAPTER II

  ENTOMBED ALIVE

  "Danger! You're plumb crazy about danger, Clem!" Anton declaredimpatiently.

  The older lad gestured to the big building of the pit-mouth beforethem, above which the spider-like legs of the headgear soared high,surmounted by the huge double winding-wheels which give socharacteristic a note to a modern colliery.

  "Any one who forgets that a coal-mine is dangerous is a fool," heretorted sharply, "and keep that in your head, Anton, my lad. Not thatdanger would ever stop me from mining. I like it. I like to feel thatI'm running a risk every time I go into an entry and every timethere's a blast. And I like to feel that I know enough about safetymethods to snap my fingers at the risk. There's excitement in that."

  "There'll be excitement enough, if old Otto's warnings come true,"returned Anton gloomily.

  Two days had passed since the old miner's prophecy, two days withoutany unusual incident. Clem had all but forgotten the evil presage, butAnton was brooding over it. It was his work to load cars in the roomwhere Clem was mining, and the boy's superstitious nature made himpainfully aware that if any accident happened to his comrade, he wouldprobably be caught, too.

  Anton had been working in the mine only a few weeks and he had not yetbeen able to grasp the need of Clem's incessant teaching with regardto the extreme prudence needed in colliery work. He had almost causeda serious accident during his first week by not blocking his carproperly. The half-loaded car had begun to move down the slope of themine gallery, it might easily have run clear down into the entry andpossibly killed some one if Clem had not dashed forward and checkedthe car before it had too much speed.

  In general, Anton had not reasoned much about the danger or the lackof danger in coal-mining. He regarded the pit as a matter of course.It was the only life he knew. All his comrades were at work in themine or would be at work therein, as soon as their school-days wereover. The boy himself had started early, soon after his father'sdeath, since it was the only employment to be got in the neighborhoodand he had his widowed mother to support.

  Clem had found a place in the mine for his friend without anydifficulty, for Anton was powerfully muscled. In this he took afterhis father, who had been almost a Hercules and one of the championwrestlers of the mine. Born of miner stock on both sides, Anton wasshort and squat, able to shovel coal all day without fatigue. He hadaccordingly, been taken on as a loader, Clem undertaking to keep aneye over him.

  It took the older lad all his time to do so. Anton was absolutelyreckless by nature, and, though he was constantly being advised as tothe necessary precautions for making mining safe, he could never bepersuaded to adopt them.

  Instead of blocking his car with one log placed across the track andanother under the car and resting on the transverse log, he would puta piece of coal under the wheel and trust to its staying there; hewould wear his coat loosely, over his trousers, though he was toldover and over again that he ran the risk of his coat being caught bythe cars, when switching, and being dragged along the side of the rib:on another occasion, Clem found the boy starting along thehaulage-way used for the coal cars instead of using the man-wayreserved for the workers, in order to save a couple of minutes' time.

  What exasperated Clem even more was that, since Otto's warning, Antonhad become more careless than ever. It was evident that the fatalisticstreak in the boy made him feel that if he were foredoomed to anaccident, there was no use in trying to prevent it.

  The boy's impatient exclamation and his comrade's retort about dangerhad occurred while they were in line in front of the lamp shack,waiting to get their safety-lamps before going down for the day shift.

  As in most well-organized collieries, the safety-lamps were filled andadjusted by experts, who looked after nothing else. After the lampswere lighted, they were locked--and not one of the miners was alloweda key. Thus the lamps could not be opened below ground and there wasno chance for a reckless man to expose a naked flame in a room orentry where there might chance to be gas. A safety-lamp would not goout unless the air in the mine was so vitiated that it was dangerousto life to remain therein, or unless there was some defect in the lampwhich would render it perilous to use.

  After the lamps had been given out, Clem and Anton got in the cage togo down the shaft. Otto happened to be descending at the same time.

  "We're still waiting for your 'knockers' to show themselves!" Clemsuggested jestingly.

  The old man deigned no reply. Instead, he looked round the cagemeaningly at the other men there, most of whom frowned at Clem'sremark. Among miners, it is believed to bring bad luck to speak oreven to hint of accidents when in the cage. Only Otto's personalliking for the young fellow kept him from a retort which might havebrought on a quarrel.

  On reaching the bottom, Clem and Anton set out along the man-waytogether. It was a walk of nearly a mile underground from the mainshaft of the mine to the distant "room" or square hole in the seam,where Clem was to dig away the coal face, and which was one of therooms from which Anton was loading coal.

  This Ohio colliery was being worked on what is known as thepillar-and-room method. This consists in dividing the seam of coalinto squares like a chessboard, taking out the coal from eachalternate square, leaving the intervening squares of coal intact toact as pillars in holding up the roof. They do not look like pillarsto a careless observer, often being blocks of coal thirty yardssquare.

  "It seems silly," said Anton, after they had walked on a minute ortwo, "to leave all this coal near the shaft and to go digging a mileaway. Why not take all the coal that is handy first?"

  "And have the roof come down and block up all the coal that is beyond?That would be just throwing away the wealth of the mine."

  "Timber the roof, then!"

  "It would cost too much, for one thing," Clem explained, "and, foranother, all the timber in the world won't hold up a roof if theexcavation is made too big. There's millions of tons of rock pressingdown on a mine roof. Judging by the way you talk, Anton, I don'tbelieve you understand what a coal formation is, yet."

  "Isn't it like Otto said, then?"

  "Only in a way. Otto's description of the coal forests was nearenough--in spite of his ideas about goblins and sprites--and he wascorrect in saying that the forests decayed under water and turnedinto coal after they were pressed down by rock. But it wasn't theFlood that did that, at least not the Flood that Otto was speaking of.The coal forests existed millions of years before Noah.

  "What's more, it wasn't only just once that the forests were coveredby a deluge. That happened several times, a hundred or more, in someplaces.

  "For centuries at a time, these gloomy and steaming forests grew inboggy land, only a few inches above the level of the sea. Graduallythe land sank, the sea came in, the trees fell and decayed under thewater, and a layer of mud or sand was deposited over them. Thengradually the land rose again just above the level of the sea, and anew forest grew. Once more the land sank below the water, the secondforest fell into decay and upon that layer a new deposit of mud orsand was laid. That gave two layers or seams of coal-forest-bog, to beturned later into coal by pressure; and two layers or strata of mud orsand, to be turned into shale and slate or into sandstone, also bypressure.

  "When a long time elapsed between the swampings, several centuries ofcoal forests had made a deep bed of bog, which, ages after, became athick seam of coal. When the swampings happened close together, thelayer of bog was shallow, producing a thin seam of coal. In the sameway, the layers of shale or sandstone are thick or thin according tothe length of time that the land was under the water.

  "Because of that, Anton, in nearly every colliery there is not justone layer or seam of coal, but a number of them. There are sixteendifferent seams in this mine, showing that the land rose and fellsixteen times, probably in the course of a million years.

  "Some mines show much bigger changes. In the famous coal basin ofMons, in Belgium, there are 157 layers of coal, of which 120 are thickenough to be workable.
The Saar basin, on the left bank of the Rhine,which has played so important a part in the international troublesfollowing the end of the World War, has 164 seams, with 77 of themworkable, giving a thickness of 240 feet of coal. However, as thelowest layers are nearly four miles deep, they will probably never beworked."

  "Why not?"

  "To start with, the cost of haulage to the top would be enormous. But,aside from that, a good many mining engineers figure that thetemperature at that depth would be above boiling point. You know, ingeneral, the farther you go down in a mine, the hotter it gets."

  "What do you mean by a seam being 'workable'?" the boy queried. "Can'tall coal be dug out?"

  "Not by a long shot. At least not so as to be worked at a profit.Suppose a seam of coal is only a few inches thick, how is a minergoing to dig it out? He couldn't crawl in such a seam, let alone usinghis tools there."

  "He could cut out enough rock at the top and bottom to give him achance to get in."

  "A miner is paid for digging coal, not digging rock," was the answer."What's more, according to your scheme, so much shale or sandstonewould be mixed with the coal that it would be useless for burning.

  "Even seams two feet thick are so hard to work that most of them areleft alone, and a seam three feet thick means extra expense in gettingout the coal because of the difficulty of labor in hewing andtransporting the coal from the face to the shaft. The ideal thicknessis between six and eight feet, where a man can stand upright and canreach to the roof with a slate bar. That height, too, makes timberingeasy.

  "Very thick seams have their own difficulties. The worst of these isthe supporting of the roof. Take a seam 30 or 40 feet thick, forexample. Look at the size of the hole that is left when the coal isdug away! Timbering becomes a real problem, there, for the longer aprop is, Anton, the weaker it is. Coal managers in mines like thosehave to do some careful figuring, or the cost of the timber they putinto the mine would be more than the value of the coal they take out."

  "How do they handle it then?"

  "As if it were a quarry, rather than a mine. The seam is worked onsuccessive levels, but, even then, it is impossible to preventconstant accidents from the fall of coal or the sudden collapse of aroof. Take it the world over, and ten miners are killed every day incollieries alone. I told you coal mining was dangerous."

  "But are there any of those thick seams in the United States?"

  "None of the really thick ones. There's a 40-foot anthracite seam inPennsylvania. But in France, near the famous Creusot works, there's abed of coal which is 130 feet thick. It's a basin, though, rather thana seam.

  "So you see, Anton, every coal mine is different, with its layers orseams of coal of different thicknesses and at varying distances apart.Some pits are near the surface, some are very deep; some coal is fullof gas, other has very little; some coal is so hard that every bit ofit has to be blasted, in other mines the coal is so soft that thehewer spends half his time spragging the face so that the coal doesn'tfall on him when he's undercutting or holing. Don't you make themistake of thinking that all a miner has to do is to use his pick!He's got to know his business thoroughly or he's useless to the mineboss and a danger to all his fellow-workmen.

  "And that isn't all, Anton, not by a good deal!

  "Coal mining might be bad enough, even if the coal seams always ranlevel. But it's very seldom that they do. They run up-hill anddown-hill in all sorts of fashions and play hide-and-go-seek in a waythat's fairly bewildering.

  "Nearly all coal seams are broken up by faults. The coal suddenlyseems to stop, and, when you go to hewing it the pick suddenly hitsagainst a rock wall, right on the level of the seam. In the NorthGallery of this very mine, there's a fault like that. You know wherethe 'snagger' is?"

  "Sure," agreed Anton, "you mean where the cars have to be hitched onto a chain?"

  "Yes, there! The coal seam jumps upwards fifty feet. That's why thecars, after rolling down nearly a quarter of a mile, by gravity, haveto be pulled up fifty feet by an endless chain, to rejoin the sameseam and then to go rolling on down by themselves."

  "Just what are faults?"

  "H'm, that's a bit hard to explain to you, Anton, because you don'tknow anything about geology, but maybe I can get you to see. Faultsare breaks in the layers of rock, or in the stratification, as it iscalled. All coal seams and the rocks above and below them have beenlaid down by water. Since water levels everything, these layers ofrock were level, once.

  "In ages past, however, the crust of the earth changed a good deal. Asthe crust cooled, it contracted, crumpling up these different layersinto all sorts of shapes. Sometimes it bulged them up, sometimes ithollowed them down so that the edges rose. Quite often a layer ofrock would be cracked right across, and one half would stay levelwhile the other shot up almost a right angle. A good many mountainsshow the result of this, and if you look at such rocks as are stickingup out of the ground you will see some of them standing right on edge.Once in a while, part of the broken crust slid over the other part.Then, too, though the surface may not always show it, there have beenbreaks in the strata below, and at the break, the layer has sunk orrisen quite a distance from its former level.

  "If that happens to a coal seam, you can see that where the seambreaks, suddenly, the rest of it will continue on another level,perhaps only a few feet higher or lower, perhaps a good deal more.It's up to the mine geologist to find where the coal has gone to, andit's the business of the mine engineer to remodel the entire system ofworking the mine in order to get at that seam."

  "And are all coal mines mixed up in that funny way?" Anton queried.

  "Most of them. Oh, there's no end to the tricks a coal seam can play.A deep coal seam may split into two narrow ones, too thin to work.The whole seam may quickly dwindle away to nothing, showing that, inages past, a river came rolling over it and washed away all the forestbog. Sometimes, especially with the lowermost seams, the forest grewon rolling land, so that the bottom of the coal seam is irregular,causing all sorts of trouble in laying rails for the cars to roll on.Sometimes the layer of rock under a coal seam is so soft that when youstart to timber it, the timbers sink into the floor and the roof comestoppling down.

  "Among the queerest of all the things a mine geologist strikes arewhat are called dykes. These are great shafts of igneous rock, whichwere thrust up from the interior of the earth in a white-hot state andwhich burned away the coal as they rose. They put a dead stop to aworking. I could tell you a dozen more freak things that a coal seamcan do. A mine geologist has not only a new problem to tackle withevery mine, but, often, with every mine gallery."

  "Is that what you're studying to be, Clem?"

  "No, indeed!" The young fellow's answer was emphatic. "That's 'way outof my reach. It takes a college man, with special technical trainingand a big experience, to be anything of a mine geologist. All I'mtrying to do is to learn enough about it so that when I get to be amine boss--if I ever do--I'll know what my chiefs are trying to do andI'll be able to help them.

  "Take Otto, for example. There isn't a better worker in the mine. Hegets out more coal and less broken stuff than any other man belowground. But he'll never be anything but a hewer, because he doesn'twant to learn. Why, just the other day, he was growling because themine was shut down to repair one of the shafts, though the other shaftwas working all right."

  "So were a lot of the men," Anton put in. "Why couldn't they go onworking, with one shaft?"

  "Against the law," was the crisp answer. "That's the A B C of mining.And I'll show you why! All mines are required to have two shafts, incase of accident. That law was passed because of a famous disasterthat happened in England nearly a hundred years ago.

  "In those days, colliers had only one shaft. One day, the beam of anengine which was directly over a shaft snapped, and a huge piece ofmachinery, weighing several tons, tumbled into the shaft and stuck,not far from the bottom. As it fell, it ripped away the planking whichlined the shaft and a whole lot of loose rock and earth fell
on top ofthe piece of machinery, blocking up the shaft entirely and stoppingany air from passing. There were over two hundred men and boys at workbelow ground.

  MINERS DESCENDING A SHAFT.

  _From an Old Print._]

  FALLING-IN OF A MINE.]

  EXPLOSION OF "FIRE-DAMP."]

  "With only one shaft, you can see what a mess that made! Before anydigging could be done, the lining of the shaft had to be repaired,because dirt and rocks were falling into the shaft all the time.Miners--hundreds of them--were brought from neighboring mines, andthey worked night and day on two-hour shifts, clinging to the sides ofthe shaft as thick as bees in a hive. Others, risking their lives withevery stroke of the pick, dug away at the earth and rock that hadfallen on the big chunk of machinery. With all the speed that humaneffort could compass, it was six days and nights before a hole hadbeen made through the obstruction big enough for a man to pass. And,when the first rescuer reached the workings below, the 200 men weredead. Not a single one survived. The miners had been entombed alivewithout any air passage and could do nothing, absolutely nothing, tohelp themselves out of their living grave.

  "Ever since then, every colliery in Europe and the United States isrequired to have two shafts, and the law demands that these shall beno less than fifteen yards apart and connected by a wide passage. Notonly that, but each shaft must have a complete outfit of windingmachinery coupled to separate engines, so that, in the event of anaccident happening to one shaft, the men below ground can be rescuedup the other."

  "That sounds all right," said Anton, rather gloomily, "but suppose theway to both shafts is blocked?"

  "Not likely," Clem responded cheerfully, "if a mine has been properlylaid out. Take this one, there are half a dozen ways to get from theface to the shaft."

  "But Otto said--"

  The other turned upon him sharply.

  "I've had about enough of that Otto business! If you can't keep fromthinking about it, keep from talking about it, anyhow!"

  To this rebuke Anton maintained a stubborn silence, and, withoutanother word said, the two walked on until they reached theirrespective places of work.

  In the gloomy world of below ground, where the dusty wall of sootyblack is the only landscape to be seen, one day is very much likeanother. Reaching his room, Clem stood his tools in order along therib, hung his safety lamp on a nail which he drove into a propsupporting the roof, and, reaching up so as to put one hand on theroof, tapped it with the flat side of his pick to make sure that therewas no loose slate overhead. He then examined the coal face, as it hadbeen left by the hewer who had been working on the night shift, tomake sure that it had been properly spragged or timbered.

  This done, Clem stripped naked to the waist, for it was hot in thathole far below ground. Then, lying down flat on his side, his bareshoulder resting on the gritty ground, he started to pick away thecoal at the level of the floor and just above it, making awedge-shaped hole extending under the seam for a distance in of threefeet.

  Many mines, especially in America, use mechanical coal-cutters forthis back-breaking labor. These machines are especially useful inmines where the coal-seams are less than 3-1/2 feet thick, and theyare well adapted to "long-wall" workings where the whole face of thecoal is removed in a single operation. Some are mounted with a toothedbar which moves in and out, chipping the coal; other types are likecircular saws; several forms have the same action as a miner's pick,the percussions being at the speed of two hundred strokes a minute,the motive-power being compressed air.

  In pillar-and-room workings, such as this Ohio mine, chain headingmachines were used. This American invention consists of a bed-platewhich rests on the floor and is secured in position by screw-jacksbraced against the roof and against the rib. On this bed-plate rests asliding frame which carries a revolving chain on which cutting toolsare fixed. The machine carries its own motor, which not only drivesthe chain, but also slides forward the frame into the cut. When thecut is made to the full depth of the machine, it is withdrawn, and themachine moved over its own width and another cut commenced. Several ofthese machines were at work in the mine, but chiefly in that part ofit where the pillars were being cut away, and where speed in removingthe coal was a prime necessity. In the more distant rooms, hand laborwas used.

  All these machines work on exactly the same principle as that of theminer, lying on his back or on his side, and digging at the coal withhis pick. The coal must be undercut as far in as a pick or amechanical coal-cutter will reach, for the entire width of the face.Every few feet, short props or sprags are put in from the edge of theundermined portion to the floor, to prevent a premature fall, whichmight bury the miner.

  When the whole face is undercut and spragged, the shot-firer issummoned. One or more holes, three feet deep, are bored in the coal,close to the roof, these holes are filled with explosive and tampedshut with moist clay, and the charges are fired. This blasting bringsdown the coal off the face, clear from the rock roof to the underminedportion, for such a distance as it has been undercut.

  The miner then shovels away the coal far enough to allow him to liedown again and continue his terribly laborious task, while the loadercomes and shovels the blasted coal into cars or into endless-chainconveyors, according to the arrangement of the mine.

  Day in, day out, this hewing continues. While the miner is at work, heis always in a cramped position, his body twisted, his muscles at astrain, performing his toilsome labor in the half-dark, in the heat,in poor air, choked with coal-dust constantly and menaced by deathevery moment. He is well paid, but most fully does he earn every centhe gets.

  The morning had almost passed, and Anton was near the entry, where heheard, in the distance, a dull rumble like thunder, followed by aqueer cracking sound which seemed to travel along the rock overhead.

  The boy halted involuntarily in his task of pushing an empty car backto a room for loading. Little as he knew of the noises below ground,he sensed something strange. The deep silence of a coal mine isgenerally broken only by the sharp report of a blast or the rattle ofcars, and this rumble did not resemble either sound.

  A second or two later, a miner dashed past him, without his tools, hissafety-lamp swinging as he ran.

  "The bank is coming down!" he yelled, and disappeared down thegallery.

  Almost at the same moment, another man came out of the entry, hisnaked back gleaming as he passed under the electric light hanging atthe opening of the entry.

  "Make for the shaft, kid!" he shouted, when he saw the shine ofAnton's lamp.

  A sudden babble of excited cries, borne on the strong current of theventilating air, reached the boy's ears.

  It was the doom of Otto's warning!

  Shoving a lump of coal under the car-wheel, Anton whirled on his heelto follow the escaping miners, when, like a blow, came the stunningthought:

  "Clem!"

  He hesitated an instant, and, while he halted, a second and a loudercrash told him that the fall of rock--wherever it might behappening--was not over. Every fraction of a second that he delayedmight ruin his chances of escape.

  But Anton was of sturdy miner stock, and, in addition, was thoroughlyfatalistic. That very feature of his character which his older comradehad blamed so often, now was to show its good side. If he were goingto be caught by the fall, there was no use in his trying to preventit, he thought.

  In any case, no matter what might come, though the roof cracked abovehim and the coal-ribs crushed beside him, he must warn his friend.

  Turning his back to the way of hope, he tore at his utmost speedtowards the room where Clem was working, taking some small comfort, ashe ran, that the rumbling sounded farther and farther away.

  "Clem!" he cried, panting, as he turned into the room where his friendwas digging coal, "run for your life!"

  By the terror in Anton's voice, the young fellow realized the peril.In his isolated room, he had not heard a sound.

  Leaping to his feet and grabbing his safety-lamp from the prop, he ra
nafter Anton, who had started back on the road leading to the shaft.Fleeter of foot than the boy, he caught up with him in a few yards.

  "What is it?" he queried.

  "The bank's down!"

  "Where?"

  "I don't know. Everywhere. The whole mine's smashing! Every one elsehas got out long ago!"

  An ominous creaking sounded over their heads.

  Clem caught his comrade by the arm and pulled him into a narrow entrynear by.

  "Go slow! We don't want to get smashed!"

  He held up his safety-lamp.

  "Look at that prop!"

  The heavy timber was bending like a twig.

  "Get on quick!" cried Anton, struggling against the grasp, but theyoung fellow held him fast.

  "Don't lose your head!" he warned. "The current of air has stopped,sure sign that the way to the shafts is blocked. The nearer we get tothe goaf (waste ground), the more likely we are to get crushed.Listen!"

  The creaking grew louder, and then, suddenly, with a rush of sound,the gallery in front of them, into which Anton had been about toplunge, sagged. The bending prop went into splinters, and, with aroar, the whole roof fell, the broken rock coming to within a fewyards of where they were standing.

  "Close shave, that!" remarked Clem coolly.

  Anton made no answer, but shivered as he looked. He realized that hiscomrade's warning had saved his life.

  The trembling and the creaking recommenced, but farther away; then,with a gigantic noise of tearing, there came a rending crash, followedby utter silence.

  "Now!"

  He let go the boy's arm and turned sharp off to the right.

  "That's not the way to the shaft," protested Anton.

  "We'll try the North Gallery," answered Clem. "Likely enough the fallhas followed the line of the fault."

  A sharp run of a hundred yards brought them to a pile of rock blockingup the passage. Clem licked his hand to make it moist, and then slowlypassed it across the entire face of the obstruction.

  "No!" he said. "There's not a breath of air coming through. That way'sblocked."

  He turned in another direction. With all the ventilation stopped, theair was growing heavy. Fifty yards' run, and then--

  Blocked again!

  This time Clem made no comment. He turned back to try the farther sideof the mine. As they wheeled round a corner, and saw a gleam of lighthe cried, with a note of relief:

  "There they are! I knew they'd send in a rescue party, right away!"

  Then his voice dropped.

  "No," he added, "there's only one lamp."

  A single miner came running towards them.

  "The North Gallery?" he queried.

  "No good, Jim," Clem answered, who recognized him as a new-comer inthe mine. "Blocked solid!"

  "So's the entries to the goaf! I've been there! How about the oldworkings I've heard the boys talk of?"

  The student miner shook his head.

  "Not much chance that way, I'm afraid. They'll be full of gas, sure.The ventilation has been cut out of there for months. But we can tryit, anyway."

  "I'd ought to ha' known better'n to work this shift," declared Jim, asthey ran. "You mind when you talked to Otto in the cage, comin' down?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, Otto wouldn't go to work, nohow. Said the knockers had beenriled an' he wouldn't take the risk o' goin' agin 'em. The boss sworeat him some, but that didn' faze Otto. He went to the top, just thesame. He had the right hunch. Wish I'd followed him!"

  They ran on, and Jim broke out again:

  "I'd no business to come coal minin', anyway. I'm a prospector, byrights. Gold's my end, not coal. You're s'posed to know this game.What chance ha' we got?"

  Clem made no answer in words. He held up his safety-lamp, alreadyshowing a marked blue cap of gas over the flame.

  "I'd seen it a'ready! That means gas, don't it?"

  "We may get through it," said Clem, but his tone was not hopeful.

  They turned into a long gallery leading to the old workings, and, asthey sped along, the cones of gas on the safety lamps grew longer andlonger.

  Presently lumps of slate and rock on the floor heralded the end.

  Quite suddenly, the gleam of the lamps shone on a wall before them.The roof had fallen in.

  "That's the last chance?" queried Anton, gloomily.

  "The very last," said Clem, "we're buried."