Mine Pumping in Agricola's Time and LaterMulthauf, Robert P.
History
Mine Pumping in Agricola's Time and Later
Multhauf, Robert P.
Mine pumps -- History; Mining machinery -- History
Agricola describes 23 hauling devices of these four types, the
diversity resulting generally from the application of three types of
prime movers, men, horses, and waterwheels, and in the endowment of each
in turn with a mechanical advantage in the form of gearing.[11] Although
he does not specify clearly the relative importance of the various
pumps, the majority (13) use man as the prime mover. He speaks of the
advantages of some, noting that the horse whim has a power two and a
half times that of the man windlass, and emphasizing the even greater
power available in flowing water "when a running stream can be diverted
to a mine." The most powerful machine then in use for deep mines appears
to have been the horse-powered rag and chain pump.
Such, then, were the important mining machines of this early period of
deep mining, according to the leading authority. But did they continue,
as has been claimed, to be the only important machines of the subsequent
century? G. E. Lohneyss,[12] writing a little over a half century after
the publication of _De re metallica_, declared:
The old miners [alten Bergleute] had Heintzen, Kerratt,
Bulgenkunst, Taschen-kunst, Pumpen, with which one lifted water
with cans on pulleys or with a treadmill; and they devised and
constructed these in which the poor people moved like cattle and
wore themselves out. At that time they had powerful machines
(Kunst) using swift water, although it cost much to erect and
maintain them, and was very dangerous since an iron chain of a
Bulgenkunst alone often weighed 200 centner [over 10 tons] and
more.
But today's artisan [jetzigen Kuenstler] far surpasses the old ...
since we have in the present time invented many other mining
machines; such as the _Stangenkunst mit dem krummen Zapffen_, which
raises water at small cost over 100 Lachter [562 feet].
[Illustration: Figure 6.--STANGENKUNST, SHOWING DRIVING WHEEL,
FELDKUNST, AND KUNSTKREUZ. From H. Calvoer (see footnote 15).]
The Stangenkunst, which can be roughly translated as "rod work with
crank," was a piston pump driven through a crank and rods by a prime
mover located at a distant point. Agricola describes a crank-driven
piston pump, calling it a new machine invented ten years earlier.[13]
But it is not driven bya distant prime mover. Like his other
water-powered hauling machines it can only be used "when a running
stream can be diverted to a mine." So far as we can determine from
internal evidence, Agricola did not know the Stangenkunst.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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