FATAL ACCIDENT IN A QUARTZ MINE AT MARYBOROUGH, VICTORIA.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 16, 18 June 1874, Page 3

FATAL ACCIDENT IN A QUARTZ MINE AT MARYBOROUGH, VICTORIA.

The following narrative of the above disaster is from the “ Maryborough Advertiser” of the 18th ultimo :—“Advertisements having appeared calling for tenders for reefdriving at the Duke and Timor claim, two miners, named Joseph Nicholls and Thomas Hocking, were desirous for tendering for the work, and with the object of seeing the ground descended the shaft and passed into the main drive. Two other men, T. Stubbs and Richard Bennett, were working in the face of a crosscut off the main drive—about IGft or so from it—when the two former men passed along the drive, Stubbs at the moment being in the act of going towards the balance skip to skip two skips of dirt. As Stubbs returned to his mate (Bennett), he found the two men, Nicholls and Hocking, in an old cross-cut, looking at the drive going to be let on contract, Stubbs went back to work, and was filling another truck of dirt from the face of the drive, when Nicholls and Hocking came into the crosscut and stood there while Stubbs filled’his truck of dirt. Nicholls went out again to look at the main drive, to sec, as ho said, ‘ how it was faced up.’ He presently returned, and said ‘ the water coming in from the drive was very dirty, and making a bit of a noise.’ He (Nicholls) seemed apprehensive of danger, but Stubbs made the remark, ‘ Oh, it’s all right and safe enough ; ’ but in the meantime he took a candle and went to look. Just as he (Stubbs) got on to the fiat sheet in the main drive out of the crosscut, ho heard something giving way, and cried out, ‘ Come on, boys.’ Stubbs saw Nicholls following, but ho is not able to say whether the other two men came out of the crosscut or not. Nicholls ran up against Stubbs as he (Stubbs) ran along the main drive towards the jump-up, and Stubbs said, ‘Take your time ; don’t be in a hurry old man,’ and made away to the balance-skip next the chamber, looking back at the same time to see if Nicholls and Bennett were following, but he did not sec them. Stubbs then jumped on to the chain and slid down it, and was just in the act of getting out at the bottom of the skip when Nicholls fell on him and knocked him down. He fell about

five feet, gathered himself up, got the light, which was at the bottom of the chamber, I ' and held it to Nicholls, saying, ‘Are you all right, old man V He get no answer, and, seeing that (ho man wv -' useless or dead, he went along the m : . drivthe best way he could, and met the tr i t at the cross drive. The trucker asked him ‘What was up?’ and Stubbs told him ; and ho (the trucker) said, ‘ Gome on, and I’ll send you upon top,’ He was taken at once to the surface, and from thence to the hos pital. It is supposed that Nicholls, in his eagerness to escape, and not having a light, ran right into the jump-up, and so fell on Stubbs. Nicholls was convoyed to the surface as speedily ns possible, his own brother (the engineer at the Duke and Timor) lowering him alive, and raising his corpse shortly afterwards. He never spoke, and life was extinct when he was raised. The back of his head was shattered, and his ribs were stove in, but the flesh was not abraded on the chest. The damage done to the mine is not so great as at first supposed.” Great exertions are being made to clear out the drives, as it is not yet known whether the other men have been crushed to death or immured in a living tomb.