BOILER EXPLOSION AT A MINE.

A serious boiler explosion occurred at Gunnislake Clitters Copper Mine, Tavistock, on Saturday. It is the largest copper mine in Cornwall. There are three boilers used for propelling the machinery of the mines. Two have been working for several years, and the other was erected three years ago to ease the strain which the increasing work of the mine put on it. It has for sometime been found that the two older engines could not last much longer, and with a view to condemning them three new ones had been obtained.

Early on Saturday morning builders were employed in erecting an engine house for the reception of these new boilers near to the old ones, when an awful explosion occurred. The roofs of three houses containing the old boilers were blown off, and carried a distance of several hundred yards. Some of the debris fell on the builders, and some on a large number of men and women working on the copper floors. Most of these people were afterwards found lying about insensible, and many had sustained serious injuries. The stokers were frightfully scalded. One had his shoulder dislocated, while another had his collar bone broken. Two or three of the injured persons lie in a precarious condition.

On hearing the explosion the utmost excitement prevailed throughout the great copper and tin mining locality. People rushed to the pit's mouth in scores. Those employed underground, who had only been there two hours, were at once informed by signal of the calamity, and all at once rushed up the foot ladder to the surface. After the injury had been attended to notice was drawn to the agonising cries of cattle belonging to the manager of the mine, and it was found that steam and boiling water had gone into the building they were in, and that they were so frightfully injured that the skin of several had actually peeled off.

**********