Hades Up to Date

Mining companies of Butte, Mont., in cooperation with Daniel Harrington, supervising engineer of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, have reduced temperatures of over 100 degrees F. in low-level workings by as much as 15 degrees, through scientific ventilation. Temperatures in the depths of the earth increase from natural causes, but added to this the Butte mines have to contend with fires which have burned for many years in worked-out regions, one continuously since 1889. These fires feed on timber and combustible sulphides, and burning laterally and vertically, have so heated the adjacent rock and air as to render the lower veins untenable for human beings.

In the past five years the Butte mines have spent thousands of dollars in ventilation improvements, drilling special shafts, sprinkling working faces, installing fans. They have increased the flow of fresh air several hundred per cent, have made it possible to mine copper and other metals where ore veins reach a depth of more than 5,000 feet and the rock temperature is 115 to 120 degrees. Practically the whole population of Butte (80,000 in boom times) is dependent on the industry, and the total production of the district is now in excess of $1,500,000,000, employing as many miners as are employed in Colorado, Utah and New Mexico combined.