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Show UIAXTAXIUUVL IUST r.vrsKh KXHLOSIOX Soo:it :.!. M..y : State Mining In-S" In-S" i tor Thomas has In en in the mine all day, i o;rii..c out only :ii slioit im.r-val. im.r-val. '!u a 1'." did appear he was so x.orn and ox-en-ome by the noxious Iuamp thai he s.ught list at once. He did not talk about the accident to any great extint, for that reason, but hi inx estimation-- have not et boon completed com-pleted ;,r.d he has fm med no decided opinion, though he is half convinced i hat the explosion came from oal dust, janitrd bj a en' at 'lame from the explosion ex-plosion of giant poxx d r. either in the ,-.jr !i or by the blowing out of a blast. He is making more investigations and j xx ill bo lure till the lay of the bodies is taken out. 1'ntil tin inquest has1 been h Id and all the mass of incoherent talk i.-' reduced re-duced to succinct form on the witness I Hand, he xvill not bo in a position to form a settled opinion. Inspector Thomas 'went in the mine ast night at S o'clock and remained till tarly in the morning'. He will be nt work again iifler a very short sleep. There is as yet no definite information informa-tion as to the cause of this) explosion.! Nfithir Superintendent Sharp nor hi? assistant, H. G. Williams, offers anything any-thing but theories. They cannot vcry xvcll do anything' else at this time, for there is no man alive who xvas at the immediate point of the explosion- or. rather, w here the lirst explosion took place. Two Explosions. Aceoiding to their statements, there xvere two explosion?, the fnt being- a box of giant poxxder or a blown-out blast and the second the explosion of coal dust. It xvas this latter which did the gr-at damage. The giant poxv-oer poxv-oer may have killed those in its vicin- ily. but as th'-se men work in pairs, not in crowds, that is not likely to j have killed mote than txvo or three. The dust explosion would, of course, run in all directions, ' blasting by itf concussion and burning xvith its flames everything and everyone in reach. Then arose the fearful after-oamp, which is a deadly poison. Those men killed in tunnel Xo. 4. or the far gi eater number of them, came to their death by the concussion and the burning. Those found in the cross entries and "rooms" of tunnel Xo. 1 died through the- effects of the afterdamp, after-damp, that came as the result of the awful explosion. Then it rapidly permeated per-meated every liiink and corner ,f the loss er.tiie and the "rooms"; it reached across to tunnel Xo. . through the joining cross entries, raises, levels - "'" 'lip, as they ate variously termed. Jt can.e upon the mon quickly and' stealthily, and tlmy were overcome before be-fore tiny could -realize what was the j m:ittr. Such wa rhc experience of ! those nun who did not hear the noise . ; . ' the explosion. Mos; of those men in tunnel Xo. 4 or in its entries and room who heard th sound escaped. Mf.ny others were blown to destruction by it. for the concussion readied to some of the entries of tunnel Xo. 1. ! Company Is Criticised. TIk.o- men do not blame the r-,.ni. j pa ny as a body. They are too stunned at this time, too hard at work hunting J'runds and r-latives and , identifying lht-m ac they come out dead, to think almly nh.mt anything. Hut there are irien who make quiet complaint, almost under their breath, a gain ft what they all negle.-t .f Hie company. These delicto de-licto that tlv managers liave neglected neglect-ed the safety ,f men jn failing to dampen ;,nd kc-p w..t thr. va ,ust which gathers in the main tunned, jn the -i.,s.-r-mries. the rooms and every-.here. every-.here. Snjne of them have declared in verv positive t rmri that had th company kept this dust damp there would have be n no , xplosion, for the reason that! there eould baxe been no dust in the' air to explode. ! "In all thes,- iutmels and entries the floor iti perfectly dry." said an old miner, who has worked in the mir.e offhand on for eight years. "If th;. explosion xvas causal by hift tliere xvouid have been no explosion if there ! lad lper. xv at- r on the lloor oi if j i1;ld j been jsprinkled. In this if. seeins to me ihere is negligence. It is known that I dust xx ill eaue tiouble of this kind if there if a great flame. Now. there have been in this mine men handling giant jxnvder who did not know anything about it or practically nothing. I have seen instances of grogs carelessness on the part of the men. The managers of the company must haw knoxvn of this and they should have made provision against an explosion of this kind. These careless and ignorant Finns were j likely to drop a box of giant at any time. Nw, on the morning of the I explosion, I knew that a party of Finns took in a box of giant poxxder and they I xxere men working where this" explosion explo-sion must have occurred. Of course it, xx ill never be knoxvn whether or not they caused the explosion, for no one ; hat lived to tell the tale. The company should have kept this du?t down by I sprinkling it." |