Disasters occur occasionally as the result of a peculiarly deceptive condition of the overlying strata, whereby a rush of earth, quicksand, or mud into a mine causes loss of life and destruction of property. The bed of a stream cut deep into the rocks in some former geological period, and then filled to the level of the surrounding country with drift in some later age, leaves a dangerous and unsuspected depression in the strata which the miner’s drill may pierce or his blast break into at any time with disastrous results. One of the most characteristic of this class of accidents occurred at Nanticoke in the Wyoming region on the 18th of December, 1885, in a mine operated by the Susquehanna Coal Company. A miner by the name of Kiveler broke into a depression of this kind while blasting, and immediately through the aperture a great volume of water, quicksand, and culm came rushing down. It filled up that entire portion of the mine, burying twenty-six men and boys beyond possible hope of rescue and endangering the lives of hundreds of others. Energetic efforts were made to tunnel through the masses of sand and culm packed in the passages of the mine in order to reach those whose avenues of escape had been cut off, many believing that they had been able to reach high enough ground to escape the flood. These efforts, lasting through many weeks, were wholly unsuccessful. The men were never reached. Bore holes, drilled into the chambers where they were imprisoned, both from the inside and from the surface, proved conclusively that the passages were crowded full of sand and culm, and that the men must have perished immediately upon the occurrence of the disaster. CHAPTER XII. THE DANGEROUS GASES.