1865.] Smith on Metal Mining. 01 



to a -wall, which, however perpendicular, holds this candlestick as 

 securely as a table. Seats were placed around the walls, and in a 

 corner stood a beam four or five feet high. On this beam, and on a 

 level with the floor, was a board 14 inches square, filling up the 

 greater part of a hole which was in the floor. A man stood on this 

 board and held by the beam ; the whole went slowly down, and the 

 head disappeared under the floor. - Looking down there was an end- 

 less abyss, and small lights glimmered in the darkness. We took our 

 stand on the board, and holding the beam descended. After going 12 

 feet the beam stopped, and our careful conductor said, " Step to the 

 left." We stepped to the left, and stood on a board which was fixed 

 to the side of the shaft, when the beam and the board on which we 

 had previously stood rose up 12 feet to its first position. This 

 brought another step, to which we passed, and the beam and step now 

 went down other 12 feet, and we again stepped to the left and stood 

 on a fixed spot. We had now descended 24 feet, and by constantly 

 doing this arrived at the bottom. 



In the plate (Fig. 1) the left-hand man has just got off the man- 

 engine — he is going down ; the right-hand man is stepping on — he is 

 going up. By this means the same machine allows one to ascend and 

 another to descend. There is the footboard every 12 feet on the 

 moving-rod, which reaches the whole depth of the shaft, and at the 

 same intervals of twelve feet there are fixed standing-points right and 

 left. At Dolcoath this machine goes down 220 fathoms. Every two 

 fathoms you must step on and off the engine, equal to 220 steps. 

 There may be a man on every step from the bottom to the top. 

 Strangers are taken down in about forty minutes, making a step every 

 eleven seconds ; but the usual time is about twice as fast, or one in 

 six seconds. There is an iron handle by which to hold on to the 

 beam This is seen in the plate (Fig. 2), which shows the side-view 

 of a man on the man-engine. The same number of steps is made 

 upwards, making 440 in a day. Ladders with steps 10 inches 

 apart would, with little inclination, require fifteen times more steps, 

 or 6,600 steps for the same depth. In addition to this, the weight of 

 the body must be drawn up and carefully balanced by the skilful and 

 powerful use of hands and feet. When men come up by the ladders 

 they are fatigued according to the depth, and painful accounts are 

 given of some who sink down in dangerous exhaustion at the moment 

 of coming to the surface, or fall from destructive heights. The men 

 shoot out of that bare floor head-foremost in the dingy hut as cool as 

 when thsy went down ; perhaps too cool, for the shaft has a good deal 

 of draught. At any rate they are not fatigued. 



The man-engine is certainly capable of being made most agreeable. 

 At the time of its origin in the Harz mountains it was a much more 

 dangerous affair, and even now it is not permitted to novices. Here 

 we have heard of men and of boys falling down and being crushed. 

 There is a most remorseless grinding motion, and attention must not 

 relax for a moment. The landings are sometimes cut in the rock, 

 and the muddy rock is slippery — horrible thought. Sometimes they 

 are near the platform for a ladder-way which goes along side, and the 



