Part 34

Inundations of mines are frequently fatal. Sometimes the water enters with great force. One day, in an English coal mine, the water fairly drove out the auger with which the workmen were boring a hole. It came as if from the nozzle of a fire engine. The workmen made several attempts to plug the hole, but could not, and were driven out. A few hours later the mine was flooded. Pumping machinery was set up, but it was not until the end of seven years that the water could be removed. It was only then stopped by means of banking, that prevented its further entrance.

In a mine near Newcastle, many years ago, there was an inundation which enclosed ninety men in a place where it was impossible to relieve them. Several persons, who were working close to the shaft when the water entered, managed to escape, but they were very few in number. The accident occurred in May, and it was not until the following February that the bodies of the drowned men were recovered. With one exception all were recognized.

At another coal mine, which was worked on the sea-shore, and extended a distance of fifteen hundred yards under the Irish Sea, the manager, in his anxiety to produce a large quantity of coal, recklessly cut away some of the pillars which supported the roof. One day the whole neighborhood was alarmed with the report that the mine had fallen in. The commotion was so great that many persons on the shore observed the whirl of the sea directly over the spot where the water entered. A few of the laborers escaped, but thirty-six men and boys were drowned. The accident happened more than thirty years ago. The coal mine is now, and always must remain, under water, and the bodies have never been recovered.

[Sidenote: DEATH BY SUFFOCATION.]

Some of the most terrible mining accidents are those which occur in consequence of the closing of the shafts. Where a mine has two shafts there is little liability of such accidents; but where there is only a single shaft the danger is constantly threatening. The terrible calamity at Avondale, which is fresh in the minds of many readers, will be described elsewhere.

A similar accident at an English coal mine, a few years ago, was even more terrible in its results than the calamity at Avondale.

The beam of the pumping engine gave way, and killed five men who were at that moment coming up in the cage. One hundred and ninety-nine men and boys were then working under ground. The enormous beam of the engine weighed more than forty tons. In its fall it carried down all the timbers of the shaft, damaging the walls in several places. The rubbish and broken timbers accumulated in the shaft, and closed the only mode of egress for the miners. The beam and timberings cut off all connection between the interior of the mine and the outside world. The mine was furnished with ventilating furnaces, in which a large quantity of fuel was burning, and it was supposed that the imprisoned miners died of suffocation within twenty-four hours. Some of the men who were imprisoned tried to force an outlet, but they were unable to do so, and died in the effort.

Many accidents of this kind might be described. In the various coal-mining countries of the globe, they may be said, in the aggregate, to be of almost weekly occurrence. Where the owners of mines neglect or decline to provide their works with two entrances, it is imperatively necessary, for the protection of life, that the law should interfere, and compel them to do so.

[Sidenote: ACCIDENT AT A FRENCH MINE.]

A few years ago, at a mine in France, the engineer one day observed that the cages did not work properly in the guides. Fifty-six yards below the surface he discovered that the lining of the shaft deviated from the perpendicular. The joints and displacements were visible at several points. All the men, three hundred in number, were ordered to leave the mine.

Men went down the shaft to cover the openings, but the result was only to create fresh ones. For the next two days the lining of the shaft repeatedly cracked.

The planks broke one by one, and the water rushed into the works. The consulting engineer of the mine was called in, and when he arrived he descended with the superintendent, both of them in fear that they were going to certain death. Their lamps went out while they were descending, but they carried a lantern, which was hanging to the bottom of the tub in which they descended. By the light of this lantern they discovered an enormous opening in the middle of the lining. Stone, and earth, and rubbish were continually falling, and a torrent of water ran through.

“Let us go up again,” said the engineer. “The water is master of the situation, and all hope of saving this working is gone.”

In relating this incident afterwards, the engineer said, “I lived ten years in half an hour. My hair turned white in that perilous descent, which I shall never forget as long as I live.”

A few hours afterwards, holes which began at the middle of the shaft extended from top to bottom. At the pit’s mouth, an immense opening had formed nearly forty yards in diameter, and ten yards deep. Engine, boilers, buildings, machinery, and scaffolding gradually fell into the opening. At each movement of the ground a fresh ingulfment took place. The sky was dark and covered with clouds. The timbering of the shaft gave out sparks under the enormous friction which was caused by the sudden fracture of the wood. A peacock, shut up in the neighboring court-yard, gave signs of alarm, and uttered loud cries at every movement of the ground, and at every fresh fall. “No poet could describe, nor painter represent, the desolating spectacle which we witnessed,” said the engineer, in concluding the account of the occurrence.

[Sidenote: STATISTICS OF ACCIDENTS.]

In this country it is next to impossible to give correct statistics of the number of lives lost by these accidents. In Great Britain and France statistics are obtainable.

In those countries, according to the report of the inspectors of mines, about one half the mining accidents are occasioned by falls of the roof and coal. A third of the accidents are in the shaft in various ways. The remainder, or one sixth of the casualties, occur from blasting, explosion of fire-damp, suffocation, and, finally, inundation.

According to an English report, there was one death for every two hundred and sixteen persons employed in the mines. It was estimated that one life was lost for every sixty-eight thousand tons of coal obtained. In some districts of England the proportion was one life lost for every twenty-two thousand tons. In the year 1866, six hundred and fifty-one lives were lost from explosions of fire-damp. In the previous year there were only one hundred and sixty-eight deaths from the same cause. Altogether, in the year 1866, there were fourteen hundred and eighty-four deaths from mining accidents in Great Britain alone. The total number of deaths from all violent causes in the mines of Great Britain, in ten years, was nine thousand nine hundred and sixteen. Twenty per cent. of these were caused by fire-damp explosions.

The greatest number of lives lost at any one time through mining accidents was at the Oaks Colliery, in 1866, when three hundred and sixty-one miners lost their lives.

[Sidenote: GREAT LOSS OF LIFE.]

At the Hartley, Wigan, and Bury Collieries, many fearful accidents have taken place within the past few years, whereby many lives were lost. These accidents, in justice to the owners, or superintendents, let it be said, are not always due to the want of precaution on the part of the managers, but from gross neglect, or through non-observance of the rules under which the mine is worked. For example, the men were very careless in the use of the safety-lamps. Every lamp is locked before it is given out, and every care is taken to prevent its being opened. The men will occasionally amuse themselves by trying to pick the locks, and that, too, in places where the air is full of explosive gas. So accustomed are they to danger, that they hold it in great contempt; and the result is, that fatal accidents were much more common than if men were cautious and obedient.

At the time of the Oaks Colliery explosion, great sympathy was manifested throughout England, just as was subsequently seen in the Avondale disaster in America. For days after the occurrence, the daily papers were filled with long details of the horror, the recovery of the bodies of the victims, the distressing scenes at the mouth of the mine, and at the graveyard, and the brave deeds of the men who were fortunately absent from the mine at the time of the explosion.

Subscriptions were opened in nearly every church for the benefit of the survivors, and at the suggestion of Queen Victoria, the then Lord Mayor of London and Common Council held a public meeting to raise money for the families of the victims. The appeals were liberally responded to through the whole country. Many of the wives of the dead miners received life pensions, and all the bereaved families were placed above immediate want.

XXXI.

THE MAMMOTH CAVE.

ROMANCE AND MYSTERY OF CAVES.—THE FAMOUS CAVES OF THE WORLD.—THE GREATEST CAVERN ON THE GLOBE.—ITS IMMENSE FAME.—AMERICANS’ NEGLECT OF IT.—CAUSE OF THEIR INDIFFERENCE.—SITUATION OF THE MAMMOTH CAVE.—ITS MISERABLE MANAGEMENT.—ANNOYANCES AND IMPOSITIONS PRACTISED UPON TOURISTS.—JOURNEY THROUGH THE VAST TUNNEL.—WHAT ONE SEES, FEELS, AND DOES.—CONSUMPTIVE GHOSTS.—WONDERS OF THE STAR-CHAMBER.—DESCENT INTO THE BOTTOMLESS PIT.—CROSSING THE STYX AND THE LETHE.—MARVELLOUS ECHOES.—STARTLING ACCIDENTS.—WOMEN IN AWKWARD SITUATIONS.

Caves in all ages have been associated, not only with mystery and romance, but with sorcery and superstition of every conceivable kind. Fable and tradition have converted them into the abodes of demons and witches, and history shows that robbers and law-breakers have always made them places of refuge and shelter. Every mountainous or picturesque region I have visited has abounded in witches’ caves, robbers’ caves, murderers’ caves, and caves generally, in which supernatural rites and horrid deeds are supposed to have been celebrated or committed. The dark, dreary, and weird quality of many caves, added to their unique and fantastic formation and uncertain windings naturally awake a feeling of awe, and appeal strongly and strangely to the imagination.

The ancient priests, in order to influence favorably the minds of the ignorant, pretended that the divinities they claimed to interpret had their residence in deep and dreary caverns, and that thence they revealed their mighty purpose to their mortal agents. The oracles of Delphos, which princes and sages were wont to consult, were interpreted, as it was assumed, by a priestess sitting at the mouth of a cave, and claiming to predict the future of nations, and tell the destiny of kings. The old Norsemen performed their barbarous rites in caverns; the Indian Brahmins devoted caverns to religious purposes, and from natural openings in the rocks constructed gorgeous temples. These subterranean chambers were doubtless the earliest abodes of men, and even now, in certain uncivilized regions, they are so employed. Petra—the Sela and Joktheel of the Bible—continues to be visited as a curiosity, because its ruins plainly indicate that its inhabitants dwelt in spaces hewn out of the solid stone. That caverns were used for the dead as well as for the living is evinced by the Catacombs of Thebes, Rome, Naples, and Malta.

[Sidenote: MYSTERIES OF CAVES.]

The greatest caves known—new ones are constantly being discovered—are of limestone, and of comparatively recent origin. Geology teaches that the primary formations of caves are many, though small, being produced by the action of water coursing through the strata, and that the continuation of this process for ages creates the vast and beautiful chambers, which all of us are so fond of exploring. Sweden and Norway boast of granite vaults, especially Marienstadt, of extraordinary dimensions, though some of them have been, as yet, but partially penetrated. The vicinity of Quito contains caves of modern porphyry, and the Isle of France caves of lava. Gurtshellir is a cavern of lava in Iceland, forty feet high, fifty broad, and one mile long. The caves of Agtelek in Hungary, and of Adelsberg in Carniola,—the latter noted for its transparent white pillars and brilliant stalactites,—are among the most remarkable in Europe.

Adelsberg has an unusual interest for naturalists, because a strange reptile, called the proteus, half a lizard and half an eel, has its habitat there. It has an extremely elastic constitution, and an extraordinary adaptability, as may be inferred from the fact that it subsists equally well on land or in water, imbedded in rock or buried in mud, requiring neither air nor light, food nor drink, for the sustainment of its existence. What an excellent _littérateur_ the proteus would be as respects its limited necessities! If it happened to be an unappreciated genius, like most literary men, it need not feel any concern, for it could afford to wait until the world had come round to it, and the age had grown worthy of its thought. Fame, being a bubble, and therefore air, could not injure the nondescript creature, nor could the throwing of mud, as is the custom of journalists, mar it in the least. Much as it might be in (hot) water, it would not be troubled, and as to detraction and misrepresentation, its house would be (occasionally at least) built upon a rock, and would therefore stand firm.

[Sidenote: THE CAVE OF GUACHARO.]

In Venezuela is the celebrated cave of Guacharo, among the loftiest precipices of the mountain range; the entrance being through a gloomy ravine, running above a subterranean stream, the banks of which are covered with luxurious vegetation. Guacharo, as the name implies, is the resort of immense quantities of night birds, and their harsh notes resounding through its dismal recesses gave it the reputation, with the ignorant natives, of being the abode of the devil and his imps. For generations they have had traditions of dreadful ceremonies and hideous orgies held there, and have believed that many wicked persons have been seized by the imps, carried into and tortured in those awful recesses. They would not enter the cavern for any earthly consideration, sincerely believing that to do so would insure the loss of their souls. Humboldt, so far as known, was the first man who ever set foot within Guacharo; and he then succeeded, after unwearied patience and perseverance, in inducing a certain number of natives to accompany him as guides. They had not proceeded far, however, when the clamor of the birds so terrified them that they fled, in spite of every effort of the great naturalist to calm their superstitious fears.

Near Iletski, in Russia, is a freezing cave, so called because, reversing the order of the seasons, it is partially filled with ice in the summer, and altogether free from ice in the winter. Not a few of the caverns of the old world have been found to contain the bones of extinct species of animals. One of these, at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire, was discovered about half a century ago, and in it were quantities of remains of bears, lions, tigers, hyenas, and hippopotami, all of orders that had passed away. It is presumed that the Kirkdale cave was for a long while a vast den of hyenas, and that some great inundation destroyed them and their kind.

[Sidenote: THE GREATEST CAVE IN THE WORLD.]

The greatest cave known on the globe is the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, situated in Edmonson County, near the Green River, ninety-four miles from Louisville, and nine miles from Cave City, the station on the Louisville and Nashville Railway where passengers get off when they wish to visit the celebrated cavern. The Mammoth Cave is world-renowned: I have found that the people of every nation, even our antipodes, are acquainted with it, though that may be the only thing in America of which they have any clear apprehension. I question if there be any other natural curiosity half so well known as that. Never have I travelled in any domain inhabited by intelligent people, who had not only heard of it, but who did not have something like accurate information respecting its extent and peculiarities. Famous as it is, and easy of access, comparatively few of our countrymen have explored it. Indeed, the very ease of its access has prevented a great many persons from going there who would otherwise have gone. What we can do at any time we are not likely to do at all; for any time is really no time. I have met residents of Naples who had never ascended Vesuvius, or seen the ruins of Pompeii. I am acquainted with citizens of Schaffhausen who have never set eyes on the magnificent Rhine Falls. There are Parisians who have never been in the Louvre Gallery, or the Park of Versailles; Romans who have never stood before the Apollo, the Laocoön, or the Transfiguration; Athenians who have never been within the Parthenon; Cairines to whom the pyramids are a dream; denizens of St. Petersburg unacquainted with Moscow; Viennese ignorant of the Belvedere and Schönbrunn; Berlinese unfamiliar with Potsdam, and cultivated Londoners who have never made a pilgrimage to Stratford, to the tomb of the most wonderful genius the world has yet shown.

It is not strange, therefore, that Kentuckians, liberal as their state vanity is, should often die without “doing” the Mammoth Cave. I remember how often I went within a few miles of the cave before I took the trouble to visit it, and that, finally, dissatisfied with myself for its long neglect, I made a special journey from New York to carry out my much deferred purpose. For several years a branch railway has been talked of from Cave City to the Cave; but it has never been built, needful as it is in the saving of time. Eighteen miles of coaching, in these rapid and driving days, appear to the average traveller considerable of a task; and when to this is added the two full days required for an exploration of the enormous cavern, it is easy to understand why so many persons refuse to examine the subterranean chamber lying along the Green River.

[Sidenote: A SWINDLING MANAGEMENT.]

You cannot do the cave in much less than four days, owing to the determination of the coach-driver and the keeper of the hotel to delay tourists as much as possible. I still recall my first experience, and the second and third have not been in any essential respect dissimilar. The train reached Cave City at twelve o’clock, but the vehicle that was to convey me to the vast cavern would not leave for more than two hours, this arrangement being entered into by interested parties to secure each passenger for dinner at the railway station inn.

The conveyance takes its departure very leisurely, and before you are fairly inside or outside, as the case may be, you are obliged to pay not only your fare to the cave, but your fare back, even if you have no intention of returning for a month. This ruffles most people, and impregnates them with the notion that the astuteness of negotiations in that neighborhood is not far removed from swindling—a notion apt to be strengthened as they go on. Arriving at the Mammoth Cave Hotel, a great, rambling, ill-kept, uncomfortable collection of frame buildings, of the kind of which travellers in the South cannot be ignorant, you are informed that you are too late to enter the cave on that day.

There are two routes—the long, and short; the former extending nine miles from the mouth of the cavern, and the latter three miles. The day following you can do either of these, but if you want to do both you must remain two days. There is no need of this, since a strong man, accustomed to exercise, can make the double subterranean journey in ten or twelve hours without difficulty. Were he to do so, however, the rustic Boniface would lose the price of one day’s board; and hence the tourist must be put to serious inconvenience and delay for merely mercenary reasons. Men frequently offer to pay twice or thrice the rate of the day’s board for the privilege of making the entire underground journey in a single day. This is refused, because it would fully expose the trick, and give an opportunity for victims to advertise the fraud.

You may grumble—that is the privilege of every free-born citizen—but you can’t help yourself. The public house employs the guides, and the guides will do nothing contrary to the annoying and cheating customs it has established. The hotel, the coachmen, and the guides, are in league one with the other, and as there is only one Mammoth Cave, and only one way of getting into it, if you are really determined to see it, you may growl and swear as much as you please, but you must conform to the rules that have been laid down for the private benefit of the little ring, and for your own disadvantage.

[Sidenote: DISCOVERY OF THE CAVE.]

[Sidenote: A NARROW AND MISTAKEN POLICY.]

The cave was accidentally discovered some seventy years ago by a hunter, and ten years later was worked for the purpose of procuring saltpetre; the company so engaged finding it unprofitable, and at last abandoning it to curiosity-seekers. The property belonged originally to a Dr. Croghan, who died some years since, leaving it to the heirs of the [General] Jessup estate. These heirs are so anxious to make money out of it, and so narrow at the same time, that they have adopted a penny-wise and pound-foolish policy. They will not lease the hotel for a period of more than five years, and, consequently, no lessee can be had who will make such improvements in the house and grounds as are needed. They are very fearful that a new entrance to the cave, beyond the limits of their real estate, will be discovered; and for this reason all visitors are forbidden to carry compasses, or make topographical observations upon the bearings or directions of the great natural tunnel. They have purchased, since 1860, some three thousand acres in the immediate vicinity of the cavern, from their apprehension that on the land which they so acquire another gateway might be found. They realize, I have been told, from fifteen thousand dollars to twenty thousand dollars per annum from the fees (two dollars each for the short, and three dollars each for the long route) charged inflexibly to every tourist. They might make more than twice as much by putting up a good hotel, building a railway to Cave City, and dealing fairly with travellers. Numerous capitalists have tried in vain to buy the cave property; but its owners, or the executors, will not sell. They refuse themselves to do anything for the benefit of the public, even when their interest prompts, and they refuse to allow anybody else the desirable privilege. This cannot very long continue, however. Time removes hunkses as well as difficulties, and cures meanness by putting it under ground.

The region about the cave is very high,—four hundred feet above Cave City,—and is said to be superlatively salubrious. The neighborhood is very sparsely settled, but dwellers in it, according to popular report, are compelled to move away when they wish to die; and hence it happens that wealthy old uncles and disagreeable mothers-in-law are always informed that Edmonson County is one of the most unhealthy localities on this continent.