'Manxman' mentioned recently in a post on here that a 'Man Engine' exists in Laxey Mine http://www.aditnow.co.uk/mines/Laxey-Mixed-Mine/?gowhere=%2fmines%2f%3fpID%3d1%3fpid%3d1%26ac%3dA%26ad%3d50 

The Wkipedia article on 'Man Engines' is quite fascinating and well worth reading. Unfortunately, the link to an animation of a working Man Engine does not appear to be working.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_engine 

---

Here are a few facts:
The Man Engine is in the Welsh Shaft (295 fathoms deep). It had a 12 foot stroke driven by a 2 foot diameter piston supplied by a 200 foot head of water from a cistern higher up the hillside (as opposed to being waterwheel driven). A valve operated by a second piston from a separate water supply cut off the feed to the engine and the rods then descended under their own weight. The rods are at 12 degrees off the vertical owing to the angle of the shaft and ran on rollers (low maintenance it was not!). The Engine can still be seen 50 feet below the top of the shaft - I think there is an adit that brings you to this point, the entrance is underneath the Machine house, but whether it is still open is debatable owing to the sensitive nature of the site.

I dont suppose there any photos are there ?

Here are a few more web links :
http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=13480 
http://www.nicholasfamilyhistory.com/history/levant/levant_mine_disaster.php 
http://www.minsocam.org/msa/collectors_corner/vft/mi3c.htm 

---

Try this link (the home page of which you posted a few days ago) it should take you straight to a picture of the business end of the man engine in the Welsh Shaft......

www.manxmines.com/PIC%2014.htm

BTW how do I enter a link that will work directly to the suggested website???

1/ Press 'Reply' to compose your message
2/click 'URL' from the menu just above the window in which you type your message
3/ paste the url address
4/ click URL button once more

---

Or paste the URL in to your forum posting (full format including the http:// bit) and then click hold and drag to select it (as if you were applying bold in Word for example) and then click the URL button.

If you hover over the buttons above the forum message area then some help text will appear underneath telling you what the button does.

Hope that helps.

---

Let's see if that works........

http://www.manxmines.com/PIC%2014.htm 


Bingo! 😮

Let's see if that works........

http://www.manxmines.com/PIC%2014.htm 


Bingo! 😮

😉

And a superb set of photos too !
Mine conservation on a grand scale

---

The animation...very cool!
http://67.225.137.176/~pewterca/private.htm 

---

The animation...very cool!
http://67.225.137.176/~pewterca/private.htm 

Agreed but brings to mind the disaster at Levant and a first hand account. Notice the religeous influence that was very strong in Cornish mining.

http://www.nicholasfamilyhistory.com/history/levant/Sections-article12-p1.php 

http://www.cornwalluk.net/levant/disaster.htm 

---

Reading this::::

Sometimes we would sing while we waited and while we rode to the top - a fine sound when you heard all the men singing.
At that time there were such singers as the Georges, the Houlsons and the Strattons - all of them male voice choir members - working in the mine. To hear hymns such as 'Lead Kindly Light' and 'Abide With Me', coming up from the depths of the Earth was something out of this world.

.....................

Reminds me of when I was working in the South African gold mines - I used to go down South Deeps into some of the stopes - over 3 miles down - and from afar, all you could hear was a constant, rhythmic beat - Hmmm, Hmmmm, Hmmm - and as you got closer to the working area, you began to hear the african chant - the rhythm of the miners as they pass timbers up into the stopes - constant, never ending - chants, songs, amazing music - black faces, the whites of their eyes in the gloom - sweat pouring in rivers over almost naked bodies - huge grins as they saw us - white teeth in the dark - a hand offered to pull you up the steeply sloping opening, past stacks of timber, air and water lines snaking everywhere.... and then the reef - gold, their lifeblood - that narrow reef, sometimes no wider than your waist, and somewhere between vertical and flat - gold...

You don't see the sacrifices when you're sitting in the leather armchairs in the Anglo boardroom....

I was thrown out of bed one morning at 4am.. Thought my friends had played a trick on me. It wasnt - it was a 4.2 on the Richter scale - and the headframe was down - no power - no air - no winder... and 1500 men underground. It took us a week, but hey - we didnt lose one miner.

You read the stories of old Cornwall - but its hard to relate to them unless you've been there - being 3 miles underground with no winder and no power, with the heat and water rising rapidly - you start to realise how they must have felt - terrifying..

---

As a matter of interest what's the temperature at that depth? Unless my calculations are completely wrong it would be quite warm. 🙂

---

It's awful. We usually strip to a pair of jocks - you just constantly dribble sweat - just like you just stepped out of the shower - and I always had a little black boy with me who'se job it was to carry a rucksack full of plastic drink bottles full of ice. Every five minutes he'd tap me on the shoulder and make me drink as they melted - the blacks can take the temperature better, but whites just drop from dehydration and heat exhaustion. The air conditioning plants on the shafts are massive - at South Deeps, there is a HUGE plant that makes a constant supply of tonnes of crushed ice, which huge fans force air through - if the power goes down, people die - the heat is incredible. South Deeps is nearly 4 miles to sump now, and if they ever sink a shaft closer to the centre of the Rand, it'll be deeper still - and the shaft is moving - it's close to a fault, and is already out of alignment. It's another world down there..

---

Was the refrigeration plant anything like this at Western deeps.
This is at No3 shaft

🔗Personal-Album-342-Image-043[linkphoto]Personal-Album-342-Image-043[/linkphoto][/link]

---

Beautiful! I have to say I never went into the plant - only saw from a distance.. I'll have to drag out some pics of the gold pour - don't have any of SA - but got some in Kalgoorlie one day..

---

Was the refrigeration plant anything like this at Western deeps.
This is at No3 shaft

🔗Personal-Album-342-Image-043[linkphoto]Personal-Album-342-Image-043[/linkphoto][/link]

What was the significance of the different colours? I have worked out that yellow is a flanged joint, what about the rest? Certainly a work of art, very colourful!