Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1880 — Sliding Down a Mountain. [ARTICLE]

Sliding Down a Mountain.

The trail leading to the Metamoras mine is both steep and narrow, and winds along the side of Prospect Mountain from the base to almost the summit. In places the descent from it is very precipitous, falling off almost perpendicularly for a distance of two hundred and three hundred feet. Several pack mules have been killed by being pushed off at these points, but no accident has ever happened to the hardy miner and prospector who pass over it until yesterday, and this fortunately was not a fatal one. The snow-fall had almost obliterated the pathway, making it peculiarly dangerous, and when James Anearn attempted to make the ascent yesterday he was forced to grope his way blindly, trusting to his knowledge of the route to carry him over safely. It was not sufficient, however, for when about half way up he slipped from the icy crust, and before he could recover himself he was traveling down the side of the mountain at a rate of speed only equaled by a meteor. While the snow was the immediate cause of Ahearn’s disaster, it was also his salvation, for it not only preserved from contact) with the rocks as lie plunged down, but received him in its soft embrace at bis stopping place, some two hundred and fifty feet from the point of departure. As it was his clothes were rent and torn, so was his skin in sundry places* and while, no bones were broken there were aggregate bruises that will painfully remind him of bis experience for some days to com e.^—Eureka (Ncv. ) Leader. —General William Mahone, who will succeed Senator Withers, of Virginia, is a native of Southampton County, Virginia, and is sixty-one years of age. He is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. Alter graduating he became a teacher of mathematics, and subsequently engaged in engineering. He was elected President of the Norfolk & Petersbuig Railroad. He served with distinction in the Confederate army, and after the battle of the crater at Petersburg was made Major General. After the war General. Lee commended him as one who, if h 6 himself had been removed by death, could have successfully carried on the struggle.