BURIED UNDER 130FT OF SNOW

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1885, 5 July 1888, Page 3

BURIED UNDER 130 FT OF SNOW

A man named John Dunoombo, who t>*B arrived at San Francisco from Alturas (Idaho), tells tho atory of what happened thore recently. >( Fiva men (he, says) wore-working at a shaft about half-way ap the side of Sllvert jn Hill, a spur of the Alturas Range. The snow l&y several feet deep all over th? mountain, aid, <ts the day was c'ear, by the middie of the afternoon the sua had thawed the enow jast eaough to make it soft and ko'lned to slide. A Swede walking on a trail above the shaft missed hia footing, and m Bcrdmb'ia« to rega'n It pnehed a little hody cf snow out of its balance. Tris was at a head of a dry gn'ch, and the weight and slippe~ness of- the snow were enough to start a slide. la a second's time it had grown to a tremendous bEz », and, growing bigger ev< ry second, it rushed down the mountain. The trees on its path were mowed down like grass I before a sy the. The Swede who started I the slide fell over m it, hit body was | buried In the snow, and had not yet been j found when I oirne away. Two men were working the windlass at the mon'h of the shaft, and two others were Inside. The two at the aurfeoa heard the slide coming, and hurried to get out of its way They were caught m the vast mass of rushing snow and tumbling trees. But by some noexplalnable accident ftey were ! tossed to one aide, and succeeded la get* | ting out of the avalanohe They were knocked semeless, but received no m juries. But the queerest part of the whole story is about the two men who. inside the shaft. Tho slide came '"eight" down over the mouth of the shaft and picked its 130 feet ohock full of snow. The two men, Martin Smiths m aud Tom Oallao, were m there buried under all that mass of snow, for two days and nights ; and when they were dug oat thoy OIEQB to, and are now just is sound and as well sa anybody. The snow was packed Into some parts of the shaft so tight that it was almost as hard as ice, and it took exceedingly hard work to get it out. But the snow, no matter how tightly It Is packed, does not exclude the air, and 'that is the way they happened to live through. They were caught In upright positions, too, or they could hardly have survived. There they stood for forty-eight hours, with the snow packed around them so close that they conld not move. Though bo near each other that they almost touched, they oould not even speak. They say they were conscious for sorre time after the snow came down, and that they suffered tortures. They deolare they never. longed for anything so much In all their lives as they did for death.