Waterworks

Wasserkunst

A Wasserkunst is a system for pumping, lifting and guiding water. The engineer who developed it was called Kunstmeister (art master). The term exists outside the mining industry in the field of water supply, but especially for fountains in castle gardens or the water supply of hilltop castles. In mining, on the other hand, it refers exclusively to the utilization of water power to operate machinery, in particular to drive pumps.

This is a German mining term Wasserkunst (water art), which we have translated Waterworks. Actually, the German Kunst translates Art, which is probably based on the fact that the creation of those complex mechanisms was considered a work of art. And also it is related to artificial. However, the problem is that this whole water technology does not have a name in english, French or English miners did not use the same technology. So we will use the German miner terms on this page.

Before the invention of the steam engine, there were only two reasonably strong and reliable drives in mining: horse-drawn whims and water power. Wind power was also known, but had the massive disadvantage that the wind did not blow evenly and sometimes failed, and the windmills were not particularly sophisticated. The Whim Gin have their own page, here we want to focus on hydropower. The principle was quite simple: a water wheel was set in motion by the weight of water, thus producing a rotary motion. This rotary motion set a pump, a travelling mechanism or a lift in motion.

However, if it had been that simple, we wouldn't have much to report here. In fact, the problems were enormous and the solutions sometimes required extremely massive construction measures. Expenditure in the region of several generations.

• Water (inflow): It is a truism that in order to utilize hydropower, water had to be available. Many mines are not close to a river, so a rather elaborate canal has to be built to transport the water to the mine.
• Gradient: The water must have an inflow and an outflow that are as far apart as possible. The further apart, the larger the waterwheel, the more energy. In the case of top-shaft waterwheels, the water flows upwards and downwards. If necessary, you can use an undershot waterwheel, but this then requires significantly more water to generate the same energy.
• Outflow: The aim is to lift water out of the mine, if you channel water to the mine, you have a good chance of increasing the amount of water in the mine instead of reducing it. So in addition to the inflow, you also have to create a channel for the outflow, which ensures that the water cannot get into the mine. If you are lucky, the outflow of the first mine is the inflow of the second, deeper mine.
• Power transmission: The waterwheel provides the power, but it has to be transferred to where it is needed. Wooden beams are used for this purpose, which transmit the power mechanically. However, these have frictional losses, so this only works over short distances.
• Pumping: The last part of the water problem is the actual pumping process. A pump pushes the water upwards using the driving force. There are several principles that can be used for pumping. However, each pump has a maximum pumping height.

For a long time, the mines in Central Europe were the most technically advanced in the world. And for centuries, mining continued steadily, with increasing difficulties which were solved with many inventions, but also with investment and tenacity. The Wasserkunst deserves its name, it is the culmination of a development that lasted several centuries and ended abruptly with the invention of the steam engine. To summarize, it can be said that a whole series of inventions had to be made and a suitable combination had to be found. Much of this is already described in the book by Georgius Agricola.

In general, a pump generates both pressure in the pumping direction and negative pressure in the suction direction, so that water can be lifted on both sides. However, both have one thing in common: the suction height is limited because the weight of the water causes the water column to break off from a suction height of 10 metres. In the other direction, the height that can be pumped is significantly higher, but is limited by the pump. The often wooden pumps were not able to cope with higher pressures. And so several pumps were connected in series, each pumping the water a little further up.

To drive all these pumps, a lot of power had to be generated and channelled to the pumps. To do this, there were rods that were driven by the water wheel. However, each bearing consumed energy, so the distance had to be kept as short as possible. The solution was so-called underground wheel chambers in which wooden wheels were driven by water. The water had to be channelled into the mine from above, but of course it was not allowed to remain there.

The solution for this problem were adits, in German Lösungsstollen (solution tunnel), which solved the water problem. Somewhere in the centre of the mine, a tunnel led downhill to the next valley, and the water flowed down there of its own accord. The water wheels were now installed above this adit, and the water flowed through it after it had driven the water wheel. The water which was pumped up from the deeper parts of the mine also flowed out through this tunnel.

Such installations can be seen in the Ore Mountains and the Harz Mountains. The most beautiful is perhaps the Roederstollen in the Rammelsberg in Goslar in the Harz Mountains. The mines listed below all have a reconstructed waterworks. As the entire mechanism was made of wood, they have decayed since they became superfluous due to the steam engine.

• Examples
• Abenteuer Bergwerk Bernsteinzimmer
• Schaubergwerk St. Anna am Freudenstein
• Rammelsberger Bergbaumuseum
• Besucherbergwerk "Markus-Röhling-Stolln"
• Rothschönberger Stolln
• Silberhardt
• Stahlberger Erbstollen

• See also
• Search Google for "Waterworks"