A Fire In A Gold Mine

The Salt Lake Tribune says : The underground fire in the Belcher mine on Friday was a terribly exciting and dangerous aifair, judging from the description in the Virginia City papers. It oaught in the timbers of an air shaft, at the depth of 850 feet from the surface. No one knows how it originated. All the minera in the Belcher, Crown Point and Yellow Jacket were hurried to the surface. The building at the top of the shsft caught fire, and the alarm was rapidly spread all along the line. A column of flame shot up from the mouth of the shaft at least 300 feet into the air. It resembled the fires of a volcano belching forth from the interior of the earth, The mass of red flame was solid and continuous for a distance of about one hundred feet from the ground, and then broke into forked sheets of fire. 80 great was the draft as the air carne rushing through the immense perpendicular chimney, 1,000 feetin height, thatchunks of einder and pieces of charred timber as large as a man's fist were shot up into the air hundreds of foet and feil more than a mile away. Men were soon sent down through the main hoisting works to cut off the en trances to the air shaft, preventing the fire from spreading and stopping the draft. They approached as near as possible to the fire, and were working like héroes, when a large quantity of earth caved in and filled up the shaft, when the ilames and snioke suddenly burst upon the men, enveloping them in its embrace. It soon changed its oourse again, but the moment that they were embraced by the flamea the heat was sufficient to burn the clothing from their bodies and gin ge the hair from their heads. Most of them were working naked to the waist and their arma, breasts, backs and faces were so badly burned that the skin peeled entirely off, and caused them excruciating torture. When they were brought to the siirface their faces and bodies were as black as those of negroes, and their burnt and tattered olothing hung about them in shreds. Eight or nine physicians were soon in attendance to care for the auffering men, the most of whom will recover. One has since died. Pinally the ventilation was cut off and the mine saved, the damage being etimated at $50,000.