The Great Bore
A Souvenir Of The Hoosac Tunnel

3i that day the large building erected over the shaft caught fire from the explosion of a tank of gaso- line, which had been used in lighting the shaft. In this structure, with its additions, were included the machinery, shops, tools, offices and everything con nectccl with the working of the shaft. When the fire burst out the bucket had just ascended filled with stone. There were thirteen miners at work at the bottom, ^83 feet below. The attendant instant- ly dumped the bucket and attempted to lower it for the men, but the flames prevented. The fire soon melted its connections and it plunged down the shaft. The first landing above the opening, ar- ranged for tools of all kinds, gave way, and 300 drills, hammers and chisels poured down the shaft, an awful shower of steel. Then the timbers and roof fell, covering the mouth of the shaft with a layer of charred wood and gray ashes and entomb- ing the miners, alive or dead, in that long elliptical vault. r During the awful night which followed gangs o men worked to extinguish the flames and then to clear the opening of the shaft. The fearful descent for the recovery of the dead was made at 4 o clock on Sunday morning by Thomas Mallory, one of the workmen, who was lowered by a rope tied around his body. Hundreds of people, hushed into a