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Show DYNAMITE BLAST UNCOVERSJNAKES PENNSYLVANIA QUARRYMEN FIRE EXTRA LARGE CHARGE-FIND CHARGE-FIND SERPENTS GALORE. ONE MAN BITTEN ON HAND Many Different Kinds of the Creepy Creatures Are Killed After the Explosion Ex-plosion and Scores of Others Escape Es-cape In Haste. Altoona, Pa. Of all the blasts ever fired in Pennsylvania it Is safe to say that never before did a charge of dynamite dy-namite unearth the startling surprise given the quarrymen In the stone quarry back of Bluestone, in the Pine creek region, a few days ago. Instead of ordinary building stone, as the men expected to find when they went back to Bee how the big blast had acted, they found a score or more of snakes rattlers, copperheads copper-heads and blacksnakes and the pesky things were crawling and wriggling wrig-gling everywhere. And the ones in sight were not all, for before the day was over the men had killed 42 serpents ser-pents and they-counted a dozen more that got beyond their reach in the crevices of the quarry. John Schurman, one of the quarry-men, quarry-men, was bitten on the arm by a rattlesnake rat-tlesnake and another quarryman by the name of Davis had the awful experience ex-perience of having a big rattler drop down off an overhanging rock onto his shoulders and then fall wriggling to the ground at his feet. An Italian, who was a member of the gang of workmen, was so badly scared by the experience with the snakes that he Is ill and fears are entertained that he may lose his mind. The vicinity of the quarry and that entire part of the Pine Creek valley Is known to be the haunt of all kinds of snakes. The amount of dirt and stone loosened loos-ened by the blast seemed to be almost the entire side of the mountain. Two of the men went crawling up the side of the loose "fall" and had gained within 40 feet of the top when one of them suddenly fell back and yelled, "A rattlesnake!" At almost the same He Killed the Serpent. instant his companion came within a few inches of laying his hand on the wriggling form of another reptile, one of the very largest rattlesnakes over Been in this section. He killed the serpent. The men were afraid to proceed pro-ceed farther and called to their fellow fel-low workmen. When the rock had been heaved away from the main strata it disclosed dis-closed a succession of fissures and these seemed to be alive with snakes, rattlers, blacksnakes and copperheads, some of them dropping out of the crevices and wriggling down toward the men and others crawling back Into the shelter of the rocks. There was a sickening stench evident as the men neared the snake den. Some of the serpents were stiff and inactive, due to the fact that they were cold. This was particularly true of the blacksnakes and a half dozen of these were easily dispatched. But the rattlers rat-tlers were beyond the Inertia of hibernation hi-bernation and were as mad as so many hornets. The men attacked the reptiles right ind left They discovered, too. that the blast itself had slaughtered some of the colony, for pieces of snakes were found spattered over the rooks j lid stones. |