SIX WEEKS UNDERGROUND.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2145, 21 March 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

SIX WEEKS UNDERGROUND.

Threo Nevada miners—Bailey, Brown, and AlacDonald—were rescued on January 19th. from the shaft of the Giroux mine, Ely, Nevada, alter 45 days’ confinement underground. They were entombed, says the London “Standard,” by a cave-in at IOOOit. from the surface. . . Bailey said that tlio first intimation thev had of danger was when the pump station at the bottom ot the shaft was suddenly filled with dust, which almost choked them. The temperature rose to over lOOdcg. Realising what had happened, the men took such planks as they could find to cover the end of the Gin pipe, winch was their onlv possible means, ot sustaining life. The telephone wire ! broke, but- alter some hours the comI muiiication was established with the surface by tlie pipe. 'Jbeil the tele- ! phone was connected with the electric i pump cables, after which communication was easy. . The first effort to deliver compressed air nearly smothered the victims because is was sent through the steam line, which, having been broken, dc- ' jivered clouds of dust. Bailey shouted I through the pipe, “Shut oft the steam,” and afterwards air was <lelivcred through the 6m pipo, and it cooled the shaft. The first essays to send water and food to the imprisoned men failed, the receptacles breaking ’ „,„1 the contents being spilled. Eventually sections of 2in non piping were fitted with caps, and these delivered everything the moil needed, excepting ; blankets. They had great diilicult\ ! in sleeping, and to remedy this deficiency bliilike!s were cut into strips 4in wide and lowered, together with needles and thread. The men sewed tlie strips together, and made two blankets apiece, alter which they j slept comfortably. , 1 At Christmas a bottle ot whiskey, I a cold turkey, ’ and slabs ol cold ' Christmas pudding were lowered to them, and a gramophone connected with the electric telephone played popular airs for their amusement.

SNAKES AND SHARKS. (SOME STRIKING STORIES. Tho story of an Indian lady who went out of her mind through tho shock of finding in tho morning, when she woke up to suckle lior baby, a cobra at her breast, is paralleled b.v the following tale from the Duke of Argyll’s “Passages from the Past.” “Alt' Drummond, of the British Legation at Washington,” says tho Duke, “toßs mo that when ho was at Buenos Ayres lie heard of many cases where iiot only cows, 1 .it \>oincn asleep, had been sucked by snakos. The husband of oho woman told him he found a snake sticking his wife’s breast, while the baby lad hold of the snake's tail, and was fucking th it 1” THE DUKE’S SEA SERPENT. The ridiem'o cast upon well-authen-ticated stories of sea serpents seems to me stranger than those, .stones themselves seem to the sceptics. Why should the survival of such maninio'h monsters in tho ocean, where they have neither man nor any other L>rmidable enemy to exterminate them, bo incredible or improbable? Why. again, should such an accurate and distinguished naturalist as Mr Jo.uss bo sot. down as cither a fool or a knave when ho tolls what tho had scon unmistakably with his own eyes? “Air Jons S',” writes tho Duke of Argyll, “well known as an accurate observer and distinguished naturalist, thus described what ho himself saw one fino morning when walking on tho sands not far from Dunrobin Castile. Ho had not. been thinking of Norse tales or sea dragons or ‘Krakens,’ or, indeed, of anything hut his work of teaching and of tho beauty of the sea and shore, when 'Suddenly', out of tho sniuo rolling water rolling so peacefully in long, gentle lines of waves to his foot, ho saw, not far from tho margin of tho shore, a long head and sinuous body m apparent vertical undulations swimming along. He could not, lie declared, bo mistaken. There was tho break in tho surfaco of the water, with the great head ami tho evidence of .a long serpent’s body making a trail and disappearing. Of course no.one but his friends believed him, although there was a lady with him to bear witness to tho accuracy of his descripj tion. But one word from Air Joass, testifies the Duke, ‘ : is worth 31 | ali y words from many ordinary mortals, and so we may confidently place his experience on a level with that of tho captain of tho Daedalus, who, with his whole crew, saw a monster very much like that described at Dunrobin, but further south in warmer seas. ANOTHER SCOTCH MONSTER One of tho most authentic accounts of a. sea monster is that oi the Itev» Air Al’Cloan, parish minister of Eig, one of the Islands., which ho addressed to the secretary of tho AVerncriair Society in 1809. I saw the animal of which you inquire in June, ISOB, on tho coast, of Coll. Rowing along that coast I observed, at about tho distance of half a nulo, an obtcct to windward which gradually excited astonishment. At first view it apneared Hike a small rock; but, knowing that- there was no reck in that situation, I fixed my eyes closely upon it, and saw i:t elevatedconsiderably abovo tho level ot tho sea, and distinctly perceived ono ot its eyes. Alarmed at tbo unusual size of the animal, I steered so as to be at no great distance from tho shore. AVhen nearly in a lino between it and the shore, the moustor, directing its head towards us, plunged violently under water. Certain that lie was in chaso of us, we plied liaid to "ot- to tho shove. Just as we leaped out on a- rock and had taken a station as high as wo conveniently could, we saw it rapidly coming under water towards the stern of our boat. AVhen within a few yards of us, tinding the water shallow., it raised its monstrous head abovo tlie water, and, by a winding course, got with apparent difficulty clear of tlio creek where our boat Say, and where tlie monster seemed in danger of being embayed. It continued to move off, with ’its head abovo water, and With tlio wind for about half a mile, non we lost sight of it. Its head was somewhat broad, and 0 f somewhat oval form; its neck somewhat smaller; its shoulders broader; and then it tapered towards , tho tail, which fast it kept pretty low in the water, so that a view could not bo taken of it so distinctly as I wished. It had no fins that I could perceive, and seemed to met 0 move progressivo.y by undulation up and down. Its length I believe to bo between 70ft and 80ft. Tbo crews of thirteen fishing-boats were so much terrified at its appearance that they lied in a body from it to the nearest creek for safety. AYAS IT A SHARK? - In the same yolumo of tho Wernerian Transactions” there is an account of a monster which, in October of that year, 1808, was cast ashore dead on Stronsa. Such exaggerated and erroneous accounts of the manster readied Dr the ablest anatomist of his day, that he was completely misled. Fortunately, however, some of the bones of its vertebral column were sent to fair Eyerard Home in London, and by these lie was enabled to dotermino that tlio creature was a shark, of the species bqualns maximus, but. of the monstrous length of 55ft, Here is an interestin" fact about sharks, which the Duko of Argyll, learned from a naturalist. “Talking to a naturalist of sharks, I told him a story I had heard of a diver having entered the tunnel of a sunken ship and encountered a shark from the other end. Iho diver, I said, was not frightened knowing that tho shark could not there bite him. ‘Oil,’ said tho naturalist, ‘they never take a man in mid-water, and therefore everybody who can dive can kill them, ihey can only feed, off the ground or on the surfaco ,and a diver may let them smell him at their pleasure. AA 7 AS IT A SEAL? The monster certainly seen by tlie officers and men of H.AI.S. Daedalus, to which tho duke refers, could not as lie supposes, have belonged to the samo species as that seen Mr AI Clear and the fishing fleet off Hus coast of Coll. Captain M’Quhae, of the Daedalus—which was on her way from the Cape of Good Hope to St, Helena in tho your 1848 —could not, owing to tho state of the wind, get nearer to the creature than 200yds. Been throimli glasses at this distance bv himseff and all his officers, it seemed to belong to tho lizard rather than to the serpent tribe. Its movement was steady, rapid and uniform, as it propelled rather by fins than by undulating newer. Its size was enormous, and naturalists inferred from the description given that it was a monstrous seal.