Water-column pumping engine (Hell)
Máquina de columna de agua (Hell)
- Date
- 1749 · confidence medium
- Place
- Banská Štiavnica, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
- Credited to
- József Károly Hell (Jozef Karol Hell)
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A mine pump in which a column of water alternately compressed and released in a cylinder, without steam, raises water from the galleries. It was tested in the silver and gold mines of Banská Štiavnica, in present-day Slovakia.
The design is dated to 1749 and the first working engine to 1753. A contemporary or slightly earlier water-column engine in the Harz mines (Germany) is also attributed to Johann Winterschmidt, so priority is not clear-cut. Hell was also an astronomer in Vienna.
What it led to
- hydraulic mine pumping in Central European mines
- later water-column engines by other German and Austro-Hungarian mining engineers
- modern variants in oil extraction