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Show v fs mursaa une inmg About Working in Salt Mines Kan HUTCHINSON, - (I'PIi A re "skip" drops 650 feet in 70 seconds past unfinished concrete walls Ut only by a helmet spotlight. The dry, gritty taste of salt makes its presence known on the back of the throat. Small chunks of rock salt crunch underfoot in the elevator compartment, spillover from the four tons of raw salt that just rode the upper part of the skip to the surface of the Carey Salt mine, where it most likely would become ice-melti- road salt. "Don't worry," said worker Ira Dale. "Supposedly they got air down there for a year. Why, they've even got and toilet paper." "It's pretty safe," mine manager Larry Schulte added. "The last lost time we had from an accident was in 1970. Salt mines have no problems like explosions, no nasty gases like you'd find in a coal mine." Three rings of a bell and the skip dropped, making the sky only a memory. At the bottom, passengers unloaded, the skip dropped another 70 feet and a small open rail car dumped in four tons of salt. A helmeted worker rang two bells and the loaded skip shot back upward A dozen small hopper cars clunked into view, d pushed by a one-eye- trolley-lik- electric e locomotive powered by cables strung overhead on the ceiling The engine dropped the loaded cars, iiooked up to the empties and slid them away to a crusher station for reloading Dale, a shuttle car operator, walked along the abandoned shafts, ducking his head from the six-foceilings and pointing out preserved cigarette packages from the 1940s and several rusted hulks of old shuttle cars, left because of the expense involved in cutting them up to take topside. "Occasionally a dumb bird will ride down on the bucket and fly around here for a while before he either dies of gets frantic and flies head-ointo a n wall," Dale said. "There's no spiders, no snakes, nothing for them to eat once they get down here." There is little else but machines and empty space along the 48 miles of corridors in the Carey salt mine. Begun in 1923, the mine has recently yielded about 1,000 tons of salt each day with only or.c shift of workers all that demand requires. Some of the older shafts are 25 feet wide with side caverns extending 300 feet back. Workers are expanding the diggings by the cutmethod rooms with ting pillars in between. Already the mine underlies parts of four cars, each carrying four tons of salt, that rumble through the caverns back to the skip Picks, hammers and other tools of physical labor are not around All aspects of the salt mining except the placing of the explosive ammonium quarter-section- s on the nitrite into blast holes -city's east side. The un- are handled by huge, fathomable black of noisy machines that bite, abandoned areas stretch chew and spit out the salt far beyond any desire to with ease. explore. Working in a hole m the Strings of electric ground 650 feet below the lights illuminate the surface can be terrifying miles of mined-ou- t area to claustrophobes, but to Myron through which small-gaug- e it's a job in the railway cars shuttle blocks of rough salt. safest place in town. But if any of the 16 un"The first two or three derground workers want days or so, it was exsolitude, there's always citing," said Marcotte, the unlit "escape route." who worked for Carey an eerie cheerless black above ground for a year void. before getting his chance Seen only with the aid "down under" as a utility of a helmet light, the es- man. "Now it's just a cape route looks like a job." Marcotte adjusted his lunar landscape blasted rock highlighted safety helmet as he by white splatters of salt waited for the conveyor and condensed water. shuttle to glide into place Federal laws mandating so he could use his loader a buddy system and to pile on another 12 tons production schedules of freshly mined salt. He keep Carey underground pulled a lever and giant employees together, metal claws raked at the mainly near the "open piles of salt, pulling face" areas where drills, boulders and pebbles onto undercutters and loaders a conveyor and into the shuttle. keep pushing ahead. The ceiling lights, hazy Mine foreman Earl from salt dust from the Bush, 50, stepped over an previous night's explo- electric cable snaking its sions, illuminate the rail way to an undercutter, a machine that cuts a six inch swath 10 feet deep across the floor of the room "Next we'll drill 38 holes in each of the rooms for the blasting chainsaw-lik- room-and-pill- 50-to-ot Mar-cott- nitrate to go into." Bush yelled "Then the powder man loads the holes and shoots it all at the end of the shift The ceiling separates from the shale and down it all comes " Bush is a slender man or the newer wor- machines e during the lights go out. rage 33 to v , salt mines presently worked in Kansas are at American Salt near Lyons and Independence Salt near Kanopolis 70-c- sent ice-boun- Chicago Both the rock salt and evaporated salt, which is 99 87 percent pure, come power goes top and the men get stuck here three or four hours at a time, we've got a 29 I tah evaporation plants than does Carey, said Rhine, who would not discuss his own production information Carey has maintained its rock salt mine partial-lbecause of the cost difference between mined salt and evaporated salt lie said The latter sells for about $28 per ton while the former goes for about $y - Carey sold nearly 3 000 tons of salt solely for snow and ice control -with two trains kers through handling all the e That warehouse was cleaned last winter w hen s the foreman's job Carey One Carey Jon Manager official pointed out that the two trainloads of rock salt sent to Chicago cost $11 per ton to ship while the salt itself cost only $7 per ton "We're the little guys on the block. We're the smallest company in the business," Rhine said. spills more than we sell." Rhine said that at the turn of the century, as many as 50 salt "companies were pulling salt from the ground. But only a handful have survived, and both Morton and years He appreciates the room with from a a constant refuge atmosphere known as the Wel68 degrees with humidity lighting, food and lington Formation The blankets. think "I of about 50 percent or five strata underlays about which some workers say probably four hours is the longest we've 27,000 square miles of makes them feel been in the dark " central Kansas and exhealthier and clears up tends from north of sinus problems. "I haven't found "Probably the worst anything better." Bush that can happen is high said. "There's challenges winds suddenly knocking to it every day. Most of the power lines down," our turnover is topside. If said Schulte. "And if we they stay here) five have a blizzard or high years, generally you can winds coming, we usually count on them staying a pull the men out." Cargill are able to produce more in their " MISSIOIARf CLOTFJIEBS Victim of Misconceptions SYRACUSE, social - prominent continue be cheated out N.Y. (UPI) A to scientist says the elderly of having sexual relations although there is no reason they should not continue healthy sex into their seventies and eighties. Daniel Rubenstein of Syracuse University's School of Social Work says many seniors are fooled by myths and misconceptions. "They have been conned out of sex because of religious restrictions that looked upon sex only as a means of reproduction," he says. "The Victorian attitude that regarded sex as something 'dirty' is also to blame. They've conned themselves out of sex by believing a lot of myths that one cannot have sex after menopause, that one loses interest in sex or that sex is debilitating and bad for health." Rubenstein says the elderly in many cases are discouraged from having sexual relationships because of the lack of privacy in institutions where they live. ryi i 0 and intermittent blackouts don't bother the "ll d five-acr- they've got their miner's hats." Bush said "And if who worked ins way to the out on fA 4 The gloom chines i lnr- - nhrtALL'. rrovo, Saiina to Jay. Okla Two other sail companies in Hutchinson take salt from the strata -Morton Salt Co and and they all Cargill utilize a brine well and evaporation method But only Carey, a part of has a Interpace Corp deep mine The only other usually pitch in to above-grounoperations, sometimes in the massive warehouse where thousands of tons of the 97 17 percent pure rock salt are stored for the winter months maintenance men have more than 30 years experience dating back to hen the mules were first replaced with ma- lammonium agent that happens, the If Several of the 13 miners miners and three help 50-fo- 8, 1 No Fear of Explosions long time e iKlotRT I2 "EVERYTHING FOR THE MISSIONARY" Octoberfest Values 2 PANT VESTED Ties Suits Values to 7.50 Values to 70.00 1 3" 89"to139V9 Nunn Bush LONG SLEEVE Shoes White Shirts 20-3- 0 - A needlework R. I. (UPI) PAWTUCKET, manufacturer in Pawtucket believes in starting the hobby at an early age. New latch hook kits for makare designed for ing animal pillows or children 7 years and up. Each kit contains a d prestamped pattern, precut thread and a plastic needle. Package directions and illustrations are detailed, but younger children especially will need adult help in learning the technique. The cut-odesigns include a giraffe, a whale, a turtle, a chicken and a hippopotamus. 20 off Kits for Kids I OFF Same Day Alterations For the Missionary wall-hangin- ASK ABOUT OUR blunt-tippe- DISCOUNT PLAN ut 261 NORTH UNIVERSITY AVENUE PROVO. UTAH I i I 4 Asst. Of Boys Knit Shirts All Winter Wear - Coats, Snowsuits, Jackets rzi rffj WORKERS MINE for rock salt at a depth of 650 at the Carey Salt Mine in Hutchinson, Kan. Both rick salt and evaporated salt ceom from a ilXTPI Telephoto) salt strata known as the Wel-felington Formation. The strata underlays about 27,000 square miles of Central Kansas. October Whooper Arrives a ttOff m$' Ring FRIDAY & SATURDAY u L BOSQUE APACHE, N.M. 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