e mine. He
gets out more coal and less broken stuff than any other man below
ground. But he'll never be anything but a hewer, because he doesn't
want to learn. Why, just the other day, he was growling because the
mine was shut down to repair one of the shafts, though the other shaft
was working all right."

"So were a lot of the men," Anton put in. "Why couldn't they go on
working, with one shaft?"

"Against the law," was the crisp answer. "That's the A B C of mining.
And I'll show you why! All mines are required to have two shafts, in
case of accident. That law was passed because of a famous disaster
that happened in England nearly a hundred years ago.

"In those days, colliers had only one shaft. One day, the beam of an
engine which was directly over a shaft snapped, and a huge piece of
machinery, weighing several tons, tumbled into the shaft and stuck,
not far from the bottom. As it fell, it ripped away the planking which
lined the shaft and a whole lot of loose rock and earth fell on top of
the piece of machinery, blocking up the shaft entirely and stopping
any air from passing. There were over two hundred men and boys at work
below ground.

[Illustration: MINERS DESCENDING A SHAFT.

_From an Old Print._]

[Illustration: FALLING-IN OF A MINE.]

[Illustration: EXPLOSION OF "FIRE-DAMP."]

"With only one shaft, you can see what a mess that made! Before any
digging could be done, the lining of the shaft had to be repaired,
because dirt and rocks were falling into the shaft all the time.
Miners--hundreds of them--were brought from neighboring mines, and
they worked night and day on two-hour shifts, clinging to the sides of
the shaft as thick as bees in a hive. Others, risking their lives with
every stroke of the pick, dug away at the earth and rock that had
fallen on the big chunk of machinery. With all the speed that human
effort could compass, it was six days and nights before a hole had
been made through the obstruction big enough for a man to pass. And,
when the first rescuer reached the workings below, the 200 men were
dead. Not a single one survived. The miners had been entombed alive
without any air passage and could do nothing, absolutely nothing, to
help themselves out of their living grave.

"Ever since then, every colliery in Europe and the United States is
required to have two shafts, and the law demands that these shall be
no less than fifteen yards apart and connected by a wide passage.