filling the old, abandoned mine workings. More than 16,000 cubic yards of waste gravel, or tailing, from a nearby zinc and lead mine, were forced through four eight-inch drill holes sunk squarely in the center of the track at intervals of about twenty feet apart. Former mine development was con READY TO BE MOVED AT FULL SPEED. ducted beneath the railroad right of way at a depth of 140 feet. Ore pockets of mammoth dimensions were mined out, leaving vast, gloomy caverns, the crust of earth between the drifts and the railroad tracks above being, in some instances, so thin that there was possibility of the ground caving, and, at intervals, several disastrous cave-ins actually resulted, the track being left sagging like a limp string across the dizzy opening of the shadowy pit. Where the ground caved in thousands of cubic yards of dirt were dumped in and eventually the yawning opening was filled, but in the mammoth caverns yet untouched and which, it would seem, could not be reached without shooting in the surface earth, there was a lurking danger that threatened at any moment to leave the track suspended in a most disastrous position indeed in mid-air. AT HIGH SPEED. How the gun is run up on two grooved lines to its place on the car. |