For the past few days we have been watching with painful interest the gallant attempts of the coal miners of Donibristle, in Fifeshire, to rescue a number of their comrades imprisoned by a catastrophe, The mine ix not of the ordinary type, and the disaster, though similar in ity effects, as quite different in character from those to which we have been sadly accustomed. The coal is quite close to the surface one point only twenty feet below it—and is under a bog. An air passage was- constructed upwards from the mine, and' the result' when the surface was nearly reached, was the choking of the mine by an avalanche of mud. Originally eleven men were entombed; then one was rescued; then four of a rescue party were lost. After many hours of hard and dangerous work five of those originally entombed were rescued, andthen, asa sixth was about tobe brought up, another che of mud occurred, and this man and two of the rescuers were cut off, Many more hours of work and terrible anxiety ensued, and then the last two rescuers and the man they
There is, however, practically no hope for wore bringing up were reached and saved. the remaining eight men, who include the first rescue party of four. In regard to the number of men involved, it is a small disaster as mining catastrophes go; but there have been few in which more real heroism has been displayed, ay all the work had to be done in the midst of the dangerous bog.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.