BOOK VI. 



IGGING of veins I have written of, and the timbering 

 of shafts, tunnels, drifts, and other excavations, 

 and the art of surveying. I will now speak first of 

 all, of the iron tools with which veins and rocks are 

 broken, then of the buckets into which the lumps 

 of earth, rock, metal, and other excavated materials 

 are thrown, in order that they may be drawn, con- 

 veyed, or carried out. Also, I will speak of the 

 water vessels and drains, then of the machines of 

 different kinds, 1 and lastly of the maladies of miners. And while all these 

 matters are being described accurately, many methods of work will be 

 explained. 



There are certain iron tools which the miners designate by names of their 

 own, and besides these, there are wedges, iron blocks, iron plates, hammers, 

 crowbars, pikes, picks, hoes, and shovels. Of those which are especially 

 referred to as " iron tools " there are four varieties, which are different 

 from one another in length or thickness, but not in shape, for the 

 upper end of all of them is broad and square, so that it can be struck by the 



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 of 

 water-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 (ist Century B.C.) As to how far these machines 

 were applied to mining by the Ancients we have but little evidence, and this largely in con- 

 nection with handling water. Diodorus Siculus (ist Century B.C.) referring to the Spanish 

 mines, 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 the 

 current, 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- 

 ments called Egyptian pumps, invented by Archimedes, the Syracusan, when he was in 

 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 vast 

 quantity of water is strangely and with little labour cast out." 



Strabo (63 B.C. 24 A.D., in., 2, 9), also referring to Spanish mines, quoting from 

 Posidonius (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, and 

 was thus called because much used by the Egyptians for irrigation. Pliny (xxxin., 31) also 

 says, in speaking of the Spanish silver-lead mines : " The mountain has been excavated for a 

 distance 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 

 of the mines at Rio Tinto in the middle of the i8th Century disclosed old Roman stopes, in 

 which were found several water-wheels. These were about 15 feet in diameter, lifting the 

 water by the reverse arrangement to an overshot water-wheel. A wooden Archimedian 

 screw was also found in the neighbourhood. (Nash, The Rio Tinto Mine, its History and 

 Romance, London, 1904). 



Until early in the i8th Century, water formed the limiting factor in the depth of mines. 

 To the great devotion to this water problem we owe the invention of the steam engine. 

 In 1705 Newcomen no doubt inspired by Savery's unsuccessful attempt invented his 

 engine, and installed the first one on a colliery at Wolverhampton, in Staffordshire. With its 

 success, a new era was opened to the miner, to be yet further extended by Watts's improve- 

 ments sixty years later. It should be a matter of satisfaction to mining engineers that 

 not only was the steam engine the handiwork of their profession, but that another mining 

 engineer, Stephenson, in his effort to further the advance of his calling, invented the 

 locomotive. 



