Account of the Gold and Silver Mines of Hungary. 15 
way through all our clothes. I now employed myself in endea- 
vouring to comprehend the parts and the mode of action of this 
great instrument; and then having attended to the manner of 
working of a few parties of miners,we proposed to reascend, which 
we did by another shaft appropriated to the officers of the mine. 
This shaft was perfectly dry, and strongly cased with a frame- 
work of timber from the top to the bottom. The necessary 
supply of timber is a source of prodigious expense in the Hun- 
garian mines. The rock-stone is of a nature so liable to decom- 
pose, that they cannot employ it in walling these perpendicular 
shafts ; and the wood-work, however strong, seldom lasts above 
fifteen or twenty years, and in parts where the current of air is 
uot good, is destroyed in a much shorter time. 
As we approached the surface the cold became very severe, 
and the sides of the pit were covered with ice. It is through 
this shaft that the current of fresh air passes into the mine; and 
I was told that the intensity of the cold was sometimes such as 
scarcely to be borne. 
The miners are usually divided into three parties, each re- 
maining under ground eight hours at one time: those who have 
the care of the machinery remain twelve hours. The whole 
number of persons employed in this mine is about 400. 
‘The machine which I had been viewing, and which was first 
constructed at Schemnitz about the year 1749 hy the chief 
engineer Holl, was before the improvement of the steam-engine 
considered the most valuable for raising water out of mines which 
had ever heen brought into use. 
It is worked by water exerting its force to establish its equili- 
brium in an inverted siphon, and acting upon a moveable piston 
by its hydrostatic pressure. To apply it, it is necessary to have 
the command of water considerably above the engine; and this 
is effected at Schemnitz by forming strong embankments in high 
mountain valleys, and thus creating large reservoirs in which the 
winter rains and melted snows collect. Many of them are seen 
in the approach to the town. From these ponds the water is 
conducted by small canals, and falls through water-tight cast- 
iron pipes erected perpendicularly in the mine shaft. When it 
has fallen a certain depth (in this case about forty-five fathoms) 
it is checked in its progress downwards, and forced, by the weight 
of its whole column in the descending pipe, into the bottom of 
a perpendicular cylinder of considerable diameter, in which it 
raises a water-tight piston. As the piston ascends, it carries with 
it two bars of wood, moving perpendicularly on the outside of 
the cylinder, to which are attached four or more pump-rods, each 
working a pump at a different level ; the first raising the water 
from the bottom to a certain height, whence it is raised one 
Stage 
