CAVE AND TUNNEL ENTRANCES OF THE UNTIED STATES

compiled by B. Alan Walton

 

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#l --- The following account comes from pages 7-10 of the July, 1954 issue of FATE magazine:

   "Nearly a year ago workers of the Lion Coal Corp's Wattis mine of Wattis, Utah, broke into a network of tunnels which appeared to be of great antiquity. According to A. B. Foulger, vice president and general manager of the company, the miners were advancing down the center of a 3,OOO-foot peninsula branching off from the mountain where the mine is located. They were working an eight-foot coal seam at 8,500 feet.

    "As they moved down the peninsula, the miners ran into pockets of coal that had oxidized to the point that it could almost be scooped off the face with bare hands. They encountered larger and larger pockets of this lifeless coal until at last they hit two tunnels, about 200 feet apart.

   "In May, 1953, both the tunnels appeared to be between five and six feet in height and width. Because of moisture, the coal between the two tunnels had deteriorated to the point where it was no longer merchantable.

   "Several of the miners crawling down these old drifts a short distance found that the tunnels were about half full of slack coal. Rooms had been mined off from either side of the tunnels...

   "By the testimony of the mining engineers, they were of such great antiquity that the coal had weathered to uselessness for any kind of burning or heat. By the testimony of the miners, there were not only tunnels but coal mining rooms.