Chapter 490 Miners
Solomon was unwilling to take over the mining plant in Bohemia because he naturally wanted to wait for the government to make concessions, but Franz did not want to wait, and Austria's industrial development could not afford to wait.
A banker named Artias showed great interest in this. Although his financial resources were less than one-tenth of Solomon's, there seemed to be no better candidate than him.
Aties Bank is one of the top ten banks in Vienna (ranked at the bottom). At the same time, this banker is a Jew who converted to Catholicism. It can be said that he has the attributes of taking the blame. I am afraid that no Jews will stand by him. This side.
But what Franz and the Austrian Empire need at this time is this kind of person. It is impossible to do it quickly and well without having to bear any karma.
Of course, as far as Franz is concerned, there is no reason to give up before trying.
The first was to ban small coal kilns. At that time, small coal kilns did not have the possibility of safety hazards, but there was some safety in the danger.
There are almost no protective measures. Miners can only bring their own canaries to judge whether there is danger. Mining tools can only be purchased by themselves. What is even more frightening is that you need to rely on ladders or ropes to enter and exit the mine.
That's right. A person has to carry a wicker basket and load it with more than a hundred kilograms of ore, and then climb up a ladder more than 20 meters long, or wrap himself and the basket with a winch, and let the man above turn the winch to pull him. Go up.
Adults can only bend down to pass through the narrow alleys, so a large number of child laborers have been created.
It is said that 40% of miners in this era will die or lose the ability to work in the first year. After that, another 40% were eliminated in the second year, and the same was true in the third year. By the beginning of the fourth year, only 6.4% were still alive.
This is still a relatively formal "big mine", and the "small kiln" without records is really unimaginable.
There is a legend that whenever a child worker dies in a mine, his body is buried near the mine and a small flower is planted.
Therefore, when people see flowers all over the mountains and fields near the mining factory, they should not admire the majesty of nature, but should be in awe of the dead under the flowers.
And in addition to safety, the efficiency of small kilns is also very low.
The Austrian Empire's industry is developing rapidly, and relying only on people's backs and pickaxes will definitely not work. Only people as the driving force will eventually be eliminated.
The first thing Franz had to solve was the access problem, which was the lift. Since Babbage could build an elevator seat several meters high, it would not be difficult to build an elevator more than ten meters high.
In fact, there are already steam elevators in this era, but this thing is still a bit too backward, and it is also extremely dangerous.
(The UK has a more advanced method of using it, but it has not yet spread to continental Europe.)
This simple machine is still preserved in some mineral museums in Germany and Poland. It is two huge wooden stakes with handrails and hooks on them. It is actually an embedded steel nail.
The steam machine above will drive the wooden piles to move. All the person has to do is to hold on to the handrails and fix his body to move with the wooden piles until he reaches the position he wants to reach and then jump off the wooden piles by himself.
(The so-called mineral museum is actually an abandoned mining area. In fact, the local people call it mine tourism.)
Based on the above description, book friends may not be able to understand its danger. In fact, this kind of machinery was not under human control at the time, and the steam machine would run continuously.
And except for the bottom floor, there is actually a distance between each floor and the wooden piles. You need to jump up and down. If you are not careful, you will find a pit more than ten meters deep. If you fall down, you can imagine the consequences.
The elevators used in mines are not very complicated. Historically, they had been used by the British in 1851 before they were launched at the World Expo.
Experts from the Royal Academy of Sciences in Vienna quickly came up with several solutions. In the end, Franz chose a hydraulic lift because it was most in line with historical trends and Austria leads the world in hydraulic technology.
Then there are the mine tracks. Now Austria’s steel production is rising, but production without consumption is not enough.
In the past, due to cost issues, few people would choose to lay rails in the mine tunnel. After all, labor costs were so cheap.
But now Austria's iron and steelmaking technology has developed by leaps and bounds. The increase in output has led to a shortage of raw materials and a rise in mineral prices, so anything that can improve production efficiency is desirable.
And while improving production efficiency, it can also reduce the suffering of those miners.
At the same time, a large number of safety lamps and helmets have also been developed. These items can be rented to miners in mining areas and can also increase their probability of survival.
Moreover, the safety lamp developed by experts from the Royal Academy of Sciences is obviously stronger than the latest invention of the British Dyess safety lamp.
Deiss discovered that the flame could not pass through the small holes in the fine gauze, which meant that the flame inside the gauze could not ignite the gases in the atmosphere outside the lamp.
Dyce was one of the most famous scientists of his time, and his invention became the basis for most subsequent flame safety lamps.
Later, other European countries followed suit and developed a large number of types of safety lights, but in the wrong direction. They only studied how to make the lights brighter and cheaper, not safer.
In fact, after the widespread use of safety lights (around 1860), the probability of explosions did decrease, but mining accidents involving hundreds of people that shocked the world occurred several times every year.
At that time, a "gas inspector" job was also created. He usually put himself in a sack filled with water, and then used a long stick with a burning candle attached to it to explore the mine. If there is no explosion, it proves that the mine is safe.
The opposite is dangerous.
This method is good, but a bit useless.
Naturally, everyone at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Vienna will not play with such low-end products, and with Franz taking charge of the general direction, the real safety of safety lights comes from early warning.
As a result, the Austrian version of the Claus hydrogen lamp was born at this time. The biggest feature of this safety lamp is that it will suddenly brighten as a warning once it encounters methane.
The price is relatively high, but miners praise it very much and would rather rent this kind of safety lamp at a high price than buy other types of safety lamps produced in other countries at a low price.
After all, no one wants to die if they can live.
The emergence of this new type of safety light has caused Austria's mining accidents to plummet. After all, at this time, most miners in neighboring countries did not even know what a safety light was.
At the same time, various mining machinery such as splitters, excavators, and cutoff machines are also being continuously developed. After all, before 1860, the only tools used for mining around the world were picks and shovels.
Franz's heavy investment in the extractive industry brought huge rewards to the Austrian Empire in the future.
In fact, there are many mining universities in the Austrian Empire, but the teaching materials in these universities are still used by the British decades ago, so no matter what kind of talents they absorb, what they teach are stupid ass and Trojan horses.
Franz naturally would not let this happen again. Under his promotion, the University of Mining and Technology carried out comprehensive rectification and listed practice as one of its most important assessment items.
Instead of becoming a scapegoat for the Austrian Empire, banker Attiès turned into a mining tycoon.