Deák Antal András: A Duna fölfedezése
Tartalom - III.A DANUBIUS PANNONICO-MYSICUS, 1726
T II E DISCOVERY OF THE DANUBE and huge masses of water pumped out. His description came from personal experience: The surface of the hill is occupied by the town of Selmec and the multitude of the shafts that the craftsmen covered with timber constructions. Down in the depths, the workers put the ore into leather sacks, which are lifted to the surface with the help of wheels powered by people or horses. Water caused the greatest difficulties to the men who ran the mine. Because of water they had to spend great sums of money on machines and horses, because they had to make many sacrifices to get rid of it. The water is pumped day and night, we can read here, and if they stopped it, exploitation of the mine would become impossible. The first step is to collect the water. It is directed into ponds through channels, from where people try to drive it outside the hill through other channels. If the surface did not allow this method to be used, it was pumped up using wheels. In 1695, when this drawing was made, the deepest point from which water was pumped lay at a depth of 110 inches. Naturally, intuitive and clever mechanics could be found there as well, he wrote with some malice. They spent considerable effort, in his words, to replace people and horses with ridiculous contraptions. Marsigli found their ingenuity - speculations - dubious. He put more trust in the water lifting machinery of a pulley construction that had passed the test in the mine. Yet, it was these same intuitive engineers who greatly contributed to the fact that the mine of Selmec was to become world famous in the following decades. 29 0 The mine galleries, marked with dotted lines in the picture, ran nearly parallel in the real mines as well, following the veins of metal ore. In the depiction of the mine with the legend Herrengrund, can be seen the mechanical constructions which hoisted the ore up the shafts to the surface. At the same time, it shows the cross-section of the ore-bearing mountain, the veins of metal ore, the galleries, the miners, the underground streamlets, the ponds in which these waters were collected and the channels that funnelled the water out of the hill. The third picture with the legend the mines of Selmec, illustrates the two water-lifting machines of the copper mine establishments. The inner structure of the mountains In 22 illustrations this part of the Danubius contains a description of the declination of the rock layers (horizontal, oblique and vertical stratification) and the branching varieties of various metal ores (gold, silver, copper, iron etc). Not genuine rocks: In his description of rock salt, petrified bodies and mineral salts he primarily dealt with Transylvanian salt mines, and spent an astonishingly long time with them. The rock salt hills, such as the one that can be seen at Sófalu, and the springs welling up from these hills, intrigued him. He analysed their waters, described the flames that soldiers had observed in 1685 above the marshes created by such mineral springs. He illustrated the cross-sections of the rock salt hills and the positions of the flaming springs of the hills (situm fontis ignei) in 12 pictures. Among the lew valuable, larger rocks and crystals, he discussed larger, soft and less valuable rocks; smaller but hard, less valuable rocks, larger valuable rocks e.g. crystals; larger valuable rocks, which, as he said, were also called precious stones due to their value and included 41 figures to illustrate them. Of the precious metals he dealt with real precious metals, gold and silver, which he introduced in the form of various lumps and sand. He described the famous gold and silver mines in Northern Hungary, and incorporated his personal experiences and adventures within the description. He also wrote about less 29 0 For example, Sámuel Mikoviny's genuine water lifting constructions and the early application of the steam engine in mines. IMAGE No. 29 on page 71: The water from the mines near Selmecbánya was removed with the help of pumps operated by hand (1.2.3...9.) - and using hydraulic power (F) 149
