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Show i 1 HERE IS REVIEW OF EVENTS IN CONNECTION WITH BURIAL OF 47 MINERS IN ARGONAUT 1 JACKSON Cal , Sept. 18 The meni Imprisoned In the Argonaut mine who were on night shift went down to work on the evening of Sunday. August Aug-ust 27. Shortly after midnight, thel hour wbon lunch is eaten down in tho! mine. cne of the miners reported smelling smel-ling smoke and Clarence Bradshaw, the night shift boss, started up the incline in-cline shaft with two men In a skip to discover Its location. At about the 3,000 foot level they encountered densn smoke and intense! heat, but they decided to take a chancoj and go ahead through It, reaching the surface in safety, although p.radshnw was temporarily overcome by the' smoke A rescue crew was at once formed! to bring the men out In skips, but the heat had Increased so inU'"h that It was Impossible to get below the 2,800-foot leel. Wnter was pumped down thiough pipes and skips filled with water were lowered down to the 2,S00-foot level and dumped, but these and other efforts to stop the fire and penetrato the barrier failed. Telephone, wires were burned, making It Impossible Im-possible to communicate with the menj below. To prevent the flames from spreading spread-ing farther the main Argonaut shaft and another air t-haft. called the Mul-j doon which goes down 600 feet nnd! i lien continues In tho form of off.net shofts until It connects with the lower! levels were bulkheaded. The Mul-j 'doon shaft had a safety larder In lt. I but ogress by this route would havo taken hours under ordinary' circumstances circum-stances and with the air filled with gas it could not be used Constant tests were made to ascertain ascer-tain if the eras had diminished or the flames censed, but tho experts were not able to penetrate the smoke barrier bar-rier After 10 days the fire apparently appar-ently died down to some extent Tho Unltod States bureau of. mines' office In Berkeley was notified immediately, and government and state mining experts ex-perts arrived with rescue apparatus during the day of August 28. They Joined with mine officials in forming an official rescue committee, and lt was decided to cut through to the Argonaut Ar-gonaut from the adjoining Kenned) mine by means of two abandoned tunnels tun-nels which were closed In a fire in the Argonaut two years ago These constituted extensions of the yr.oo. and 3900-foot levels of the Kennedy. A crew from the Argonaut force was. put to work In the 3000-foot level and one from the Kennedy In the 3900-foot 3900-foot level. Their progress at times wis fairly rapid, at others had capped by loose and sticky mud. The most serious setback was a maas of hard irreen stono in the 3600-foot level which had to be passed by making n detour of 190 feet, which took several days. Miners coming r,ff shift September 4. reported that they heard signals which thoy wvre certain must hs come from the entombed men and th..- town was temporarily wild with excitement ex-citement Experts of tho Callfornla Industrial accident commission later announced that no signals ever had come from the imprisoned men and said the .supposed communications must have hern the products of nerve strain and Imagination. oo |