1898 - Coalmininghistorypa.org

No. 11. BUREAU OF MINES. xlviiILan twenty-eight men employed iu the said Kichmoud mine No. 3, thekeeping np of steam constantly in the said boilers and a separateengineer are not required in order to furnish the safe and availablemeans of egress to employes iu said mine in case of accident to thehoisting machinery in the main shaft."Willard, Warren & Knapp, for plaintiff.W. J. Hand, Ira H. Burns, for defendant.GUNSTER, J., March 28, 1898. The bill of complaint in this caseIs preferred in the name of the Commonwealth upon the relationof Edward Eoderick, who is Inspector of Mines of the First Inspectiondistrict of the anthracite coal mines. The defendants are the ownersand operators of an anthracite coal mine or colliery known as RichmondNo. 3, in the First ward of the City of Scranton, Lackawannacounty, in said district. The mine in question employs more thanfen persons. The bill charges in effect that the defendants, in disn'gardof different provisions of the act of June 2, 1891, P. L. 176,entitled "An act to provide for the health and safety of persons employedin and about the anthracite coal mines of Pennsylvania andfor the protection and preservation of property connected therewith,"are, first, operating the mines without fitting the second openingor outlet from the Clark vein to the surface with safe and availableappliances by which the persons employed in the mine mayreadily escape in case an accident occurs deranging the hoistingmachinery at the outlet, and, second, working Dunmore vein No. 2,which lies beneath the Clark vein, and employing men therein, inmining coal for the market, without two openings or outlets fromsaid Dunmore vein, and which said men are not engaged for thepurpose of making communication between the two outlets.The case is admittedly of considerable importance. It appearsfrom the testimony that the coal strata of defendant's mine are belowwater level and are reached and mined by shafts. The mainshaft from the surface goes through the rock, the Fourteen-foot vein,the Clark vein, the Dunmore vein No. 1 to the Dunmore vein No.2. The distance from the surface to the Clark vein is 360 feet and thedistance from the Clark vein to the Dunmore vein No. 2 is150 feet.The second shaft or opening is about 1,600 feet from the main shaftand is sunk through the same strata down to the Clark vein throughwhich the two shafts are connected. There is asi yet no second openingfrom the Clark vein to the Dunmore vein No. 2. The bill chargesthat the defendants have failed to fit the shaft which constitutesthe second opening from the Clark vein to the surface with reasonablysafe and available appliances by which persons employed inthe mine may readily escape, incase an accident occurs derangingthe hoisting machinery at the main outlet; that no sufficient buntonsare provided, and that such as were originally placed in said