A RUDE AWAKENING

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1560, 17 May 1887, Page 3

A RUDE AWAKENING

— ♦— The New York "World's " Wilkcsbflrre special ssys : — The inhabitants of a portion of the If Mid lowrt of Plains, four miles from thJs city, received a short awakening before midnight latst night, workings of the Mill Creek colliery, of £he Delaware and Hndsons Canal Company, eitsnd under a large part of the'town, known as the Crary tract, and at some points come within leas than ninety feet of the Burface. About 11.30 o'olook, while tho inhabitants were m bed, the silence of the night waa broken by a p ambling crash. Houses ehook and trembled, six acres of ground settled from three to six feet, and the earth was traversed In all directions by gaping fiiures, some of them two feet m width and apparently without bottom. There aro about 20 hr a cs on the dis turbed traot of land, and before the ground had ceased to shake and settle every house was vaoant, and the trembling Inmates, olad for the moat part m nothing but their night clothes, were running wldly about on the Bnow-covtred ground, oalling for lights and help. In one place a *ho."l£ appeared in 1 - the ground twenty feet wide and as many deep.- Nearly every building on the disturbed tract was greatly damaged , Qdo of the most serious results of the cave-in was the drying up of all wells for a long distance around, the water finding Its way Into the mines through oraokß In the rocks.