Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1875 — The Snow-Slides in Utah. [ARTICLE]

The Snow-Slides in Utah.

In one of our mining camps known as “ Big Cottonwood” the mountain peaks loom up to the height of from 11,000 to 12,000 feet, and, during the’ winter, the snow-storms rage incessantly. Consequently the camp is subjected to the most terrific snow-slides. One of these storms was of the most fearful character—not a little fall of snow of six or eight inches during a night, but that of many feet, with the wind howling and drifting the snow in every direction. There are places up there where the snow is probably over forty feet deep. These avalanches are caused by the wind sweeping up on one side of the mountain, and forming a large drift just, over the ridge on the opposite side, which soon becomes too heavy, and, detaching itself, plunges down the mountain, increasing in size until a moving mass of snow, covering acres, and ten to forty feet «thick, sweeps with the rapidity of lightning down into the canons, carrying everything before it. No soft snow, but packed and jammed together so perfectly solid that the moment the mass stops heavily-loaded ore-teams can be driven anywhere on top of it, the horses’ shoes only making an impression. A person in front of one of those slides can commence his prayers none too quick. Wading iu snow anywhere from his knees to his neck, with it blowing so that he can’t see four feet in advance of him, he doesn’t have the least chance to escape, ijlthough he knows one is coming by the terrible noise it makes, which can be heard at a long distance. One of these slides swept over a mine called the “Anna,” last Tuesday, killing four men. The mine was working six men on eight hours’ shifts, which necessarily kept two men at work while four ! were either sleeping or resting. Their j cabin, or rather boarding-house, imme- ‘ diately in front of thfe tunnel they were j running, was built very strong, and conj sidered safe from slides. At 12 o’clock j at night the shalts were changed, and I the two men whose duty came on left i two of th«e men in the house asleep, aud ‘ the other two sitting up at the fire. < >tfe i had commenced writing a letter and the ■ other was sitting on a stool smoking his pipe. The two men had just reached the face (or back end of the tunnel, which was in a distance Of 400 feet), and one had , raised the sledge to strike the drill when I they heard the roar of the slide. They j ran back to thejuouth. which the slide i had run over, leaving it filled with about 1 five feet of snow, which they had to dig i through, and on getting out'found nothl ing in sight. The house was swept j away completely. They raised an alarm ! as soon as possible, and getting word up jto the mine called the “ Prince of i Wales,” which was running about 100 | hands, they all turned out and com-; j menced digging for the house, which was not found until late .the next morning. It had been carried down the mountain about 2,000 feet with about thirty feet of ,snow on top of it. - The four men inside were found just as the other two had left them- The snow i had broken through the roof, and had enreloped them so suddenly that they had not moved. They were not braised in any way. but had been suffoca edl The man aat there at the table in the act of writing, the inkstand not even having i

Upped over, but the man smoking had probably heard it coming one second before he was struck, as hu pipe lay between his feet. There they sat, molded in the snow, looking as perfectly natural as if alive. The two men In bed could not even have woke' up—they lay in their beds with the blanket over them as smoothly as if just laid on. The men who helped dig them out, and who brought the bodies into the city, said that by the looks of the men they couldn't have awakened at all. The slides have started in early this year. There have been seven men killed within the last two weeks, and a number of animals, but the camp for snow-slides is “ Little Cottonwood,” at which place, a couple of winters ago, an avalanche came down, killing thirteen men and some thirty-odd animals. A rumor is in circulation this evening that another has happened at the same place, killing six men. —Salt Lake Cor. Davenport (Iowa) Gazette.