BOOK VI

IGGING of veins I have written of, and the timberingof shafts, tunnels, drifts, and other excavations,and the art of surveying. I will now speak first ofall, of the iron tools with which veins and rocks arebroken, then of the buckets into which the lumpsof earth, rock, metal, and other excavated materialsare thrown, in order that they may be drawn, con-veyed, or carried out. Also, I will speak of thewater vessels and drains, then of the machines ofdifferent kinds , 1 and lastly of the maladies of miners. And while all thesematters are being described accurately, many methods of work will beexplained.

There are certain iron tools which the miners designate by names of theirown, and besides these, there are wedges, iron blocks, iron plates, hammers,crowbars, pikes, picks, hoes, and shovels. Of those which are especiallyreferred to as “ iron tools ” there are four varieties, which are differentfrom one another in length or thickness, but not in shape, for theupper end of all of them is broad and square, so that it can be struck by the

^his Book is devoted in the main to winding, ventilating, and pumping machinery.Their mechanical principles are very old. The block and pulley, the windlass, the use ofwater-wheels, the transmission of power through shafts and gear-wheels, chain-pumps,piston-pumps with valves, were all known to the Greeks and Romans, and possibly earlier.Machines involving these principles were described by Ctesibius, an Alexandrian of 250 b.c.,by Archimedes (287-212 b.c.), and by Vitruvius (1st Century b.c.) As to how far these machineswere applied to mining by the Ancients we have but little evidence, and this largely in con-nection with handling water. Diodorus Siculus (1st Century b.c.) referring to the Spanishmines, says (Book V.): “ Sometimes at great depths they meet great rivers underground,but by art give check to the violence of the streams, for by cutting trenches they divert thecurrent, and being sure to gain what they aim at when they have begun, they never leave“ off till they have finished it. And they admirably pump out the water with those instru-lt ments called Egyptian pumps, invented by Archimedes, the Syracusan, when he was inu Egypt. By these, with constant pumping by turns they throw up the water to the mouth of(( the pit and thus drain the mine ; for this engine is so ingeniously contrived that a vastquantity of water is strangely and with little labour cast out.”

Strabo (63 b.c. —24 a.d., iii., 2, 9), also referring to Spanish mines, quoting fromPosidonius (about 100 B.c.), says : “ He compares with these (the Athenians) the activity‘‘ and diligence of the Turdetani, who are in the habit of cutting tortuous and deep tunnels,‘ and draining the streams which they frequently encounter by means of Egyptian screws.”(Hamilton’s Tran., Vol. I., p. 221). The “ Egyptian screw ” was Archimedes’ screw, andwas thus called because much used by the Egyptians for irrigation. Pliny (xxxm., 31) alsosays, in speaking of the Spanish silver-lead mines : “ The mountain has been excavated for adistance of 1,500 paces, and along this distance there are water-carriers standing by torch-light night and day steadily baling the water (thus) making quite a river.” The re-opening°f the mines at Rio Tinto in the middle of the 18th Century disclosed old Roman stopes, inwhich were found several water-wheels. These were about 15 feet in diameter, lifting thewater by the reverse arrangement to an overshot water-wheel. A wooden Archimedianscrew was also found in the neighbourhood. (Nash, The Rio Tinto Mine, its History andRomance, London, 1904).

Until early in the 18th Century, water formed the limiting factor in the depth of mines,o the great devotion to this water problem we owe the invention of the steam engine,n I 7°5 Newcomen—no doubt inspired by Savery’s unsuccessful attempt—invented hisengine, and installed the first one on a colliery at Wolverhampton, in Staffordshire. With itssuccess, a new era was opened to the miner, to be yet further extended by Watts’s improve-men s sixty years later. It should be a matter of satisfaction to mining engineers thatno only was the steam engine the handiwork of their profession, but that another mining1 ngmeer Stephenson, in his effort to further the advance of his calling, invented the