the helmet-men are from a secondary explosion or from the rapid ignition
of a fire, because of the absence of the oxygen necessary to combustion.

The miners who were saved at Cherry, Ill., on November 20th, 1909, owe
their lives primarily to the work of the Government engineers. The
sub-station of the Survey at Urbana, Ill., was promptly notified of the
disaster on the afternoon of November 13th. Arrangements were
immediately made, whereby Mr. R. Y. Williams, Mining Engineer in Charge,
and his Assistant, Mr. J. M. Webb, with their apparatus, were rushed by
special train to the scene, arriving early the following day (Sunday).

Chief Mining Engineer, George S. Rice, Chief of Rescue Division, J. W.
Paul, and Assistant Engineer, F. F. Morris, learned of the disaster
through the daily press, at their homes in Pittsburg, on Sunday. They
left immediately with four sets of rescue apparatus, reaching Cherry on
Monday morning. Meantime, Messrs. Williams and Webb, equipped with
oxygen helmets, had made two trips into the shaft, but were driven out
by the heat. Both shafts were shortly resealed with a view to combating
the fire, which had now made considerable headway.

The direction of the operations at Cherry, was, by right of
jurisdiction, in charge of the State Mine Inspectors of Illinois, at
whose solicitation the Government engineers were brought into conference
as to the proper means to follow in an effort to get into the mine. The
disaster was not due to an explosion of coal or gas, but was the result
of a fire ignited in hay, in the stable within the mine. The flame had
come through the top of the air-shaft, and had disabled the ventilating
fans. A rescue corps of twelve men, unprotected by artificial breathing
apparatus, had entered the mine, and all had been killed. When the
shafts were resealed on Monday evening, the 15th, a small hole was left