There is something about mines that appeals to the superstitions of mankind; especially is this so on the Rand, where one finds miners drawn from all parts of the world. One of the most marked effects noticed in men who have spent most of their life in mining is a sense of danger that suddenly comes over them.
"Some would call this faculty the sixth sense," writes a prominent mining expert at Cape Town. "If you asked a miner how he knows there is something wrong he will reply that he feels it. I had a remarkable illustration of this a few years ago.
"I was walking along a main drift with a mine captain, a man who had been working in mines over 40 years, having started as a lad in the mines of Cornwall. Suddenly he stopped and exclaimed that something was wrong.
"For the life of me I could not see a thing amiss. The timbers seemed solid and the drive pillars looked secure. But the captain was not satisfied, and insisted on climbing into the stope to investigate. There he found a large crack, running for hundreds of feet, indicating a movement of the strata of serious proportions.
"Had this discovery not been made in time there would have been a serious accident in the mine, with a probable loss of life. I dare say the years of experience in the mine had developed a power in him which the men called "superstition" but which was really the faculty of accurate observation, which to him seemed ununconscious."
The Cornish Telegraph, 20th July 1911.
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