Hi All,
As one whose interest is in logging and mining machinery, I have a question.
One of my colleages, who is an expert on the history of the logging winches (
steam donkeys ) used in America, has asked me to see if there is a good book
or books on the history of the steam driven, rotative winch and its sister the
mine winding engine. Surely the British would have published such a book as
you all do such a great job on documenting historical mining machinery.
Her is a snippet from his e mail to me. Any leads would be appreciated.
The steam hoist project is still moving along, but slowly. It looks like
the steam winch went to sea in the 1850s. I have a reference to a
British publication called The Engineer from 1856 that has quite a bit on
steam deck machinery. A Google search turned up nothing on who might
have this magazine on line. Today I found a book called The History of
Cranes which has a few interesting bits. There is a US patent
illustration for William Otis's steam shovel from 1839. While not a
donkey it had all of the eliments-horizontal drum, vertical boiler,
horizontal cylinders. It is credited as "the first machine driven crane
in the world".
A search of the net turned up a lot of British sites on winding engines
(mine hoists) but when I asked several of the museums about publications
on the history of these machines I drew a blank.
Thanks,
Jim Besleme
Columbia, Missouri
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