coal-extraction+technology

SUBJECT AREA: Mining and extraction technology

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After leaving Durham college of Physical Science and having been apprenticed in different mines, he received the certificate for colliery managers and subsequently, in 1887, was appointed Manager of all the mines of Charlaw and Sacriston collieries in Durham. He remained in this position for the rest of his working life.

Frequent explosions in mines led him to investigate the causes. He was among the first to recognize the role contributed by coal-dust on mine roads, pioneered the use of inert rock-or stone-dust to render the coal-dust harmless and was the originator of many technical terms on the subject. He contributed many papers on explosion and was appointed a member of many advisory committees on prevention measures. A liquid-air rescue apparatus, designed by him and patented in 1910, was installed in various parts of the country.

Blackett also developed various new devices in mining machinery. He patented a wire-rope socket which made use of a metal wedge; invented a rotary tippler driven by frictional contact instead of gearing and which stopped automatically; and he designed a revolving cylindrical coal-washer, which also gained interest among German mining engineers. His most important invention, the first successful coal-face conveyor, was patented in 1902. It was driven by compressed air and consisted of a trough running along the length of the race through which ran an endless scraper chain. Thus fillers cast the coal into the trough, and the scraper chain drew it to the main gate to be loaded into trams.

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SUBJECT AREA: Mining and extraction technology

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After Menzies conceived his idea of breaking off coal with machines in 1761, many inventors subsequently followed his proposals through into the practice of underground working. More than one century later, Garforth became one of the principal pioneers of machine-holing combined with the longwall method of working in order to reduce production costs and increase the yield of coal. Having been appointed agent to Pope \& Pearson's Collieries, West Yorkshire, in 1879, of which company he later became Managing Director and Chairman, he gathered a great deal of experience with different methods of cutting coal. The first disc machine was exhibited in London as early as 1851, and ten years later a pick machine was invented. In 1893 he introduced an improved type of deep undercutting machine, his "diamond" disc coal-cutter, driven by compressed air, which also became popular on the European continent.

Besides the considerable economic advantages it created, the use of machinery for mining coal increased the safety of working in hard and thin seams. The improvement of safety in mining technology was always his primary concern, and as a result of his inventions and his many publications he became the leading figure in the British coal mining industry at the beginning of the twentieth century; safety lamps still carry his name. In 1885 he invented a firedamp detector, and following a severe explosion in 1886 he concentrated on coal-dust experiments. From the information he obtained of the effect of stone-dust on a coal-dust explosion he proposed the stone-dust remedy to prevent explosions of coal-dust. As a result of discussions which lasted for decades and after he had been entrusted with the job of conducting the British coal-dust experiments, in 1921 an Act made it compulsory in all mines which were not naturally wet throughout to treat all roads with incombustible dust so as to ensure that the dust always consisted of a mixture containing not more than 50 per cent combustible matter. In 1901 Garforth erected a surface gallery which represented the damaged roadways of a mine and could be filled with noxious fumes to test self-contained breathing apparata. This gallery formed the model from which all the rescue-stations existing nowadays have been developed.

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SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology, Mining and extraction technology

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After studying chemistry in Breslau and Leipzig and assisting inter alia at the institute of Fritz Haber in Karlsruhe on the catalysis of ammonia under high pressure, in 1909 he went to Hannover to pursue his idea of turning coal into liquid hydrocarbon under high hydrogen pressure (200 atm) and high temperatures (470° C). As experiments with high pressure in chemical processes were still in their initial stages and the Technical University could not support him sufficiently, he set up a private laboratory to develop the methods and to construct the equipment himself. Four years later, in 1913, his process for producing liquid or organic compounds from coal was patented.

The economic aspects of this process were apparent as the demand for fuels and lubricants increased more rapidly than the production of oil, and Bergius's process became even more important after the outbreak of the First World War. The Th. Goldschmidt company of Essen contracted him and tried large-scale production near Mannheim in 1914, but production failed because of the lack of capital and experience to operate with high pressure on an industrial level. Both capital and experience were provided jointly by the BASF company, which produced ammonia at Merseburg, and IG Farben, which took over the Bergius process in 1925, the same year that the synthesis of hydrocarbon had been developed by Fischer-Tropsch. Two years later, at the Leuna works, almost 100,000 tonnes of oil were produced from coal; during the following years, several more hydrogenation plants were to follow, especially in the eastern parts of Germany as well as in the Ruhr area, while the government guaranteed the costs. The Bergius process was extremely important for the supply of fuels to Germany during the Second World War, with the monthly production rate in 1943–4 being more than 700,000 tonnes. However, the plants were mostly destroyed at. the end of the war and were later dismantled.

As a consequence of this success Bergius, who had gained an international reputation, went abroad to work as a consultant to several foreign governments. Experiments aiming to reduce the costs of production are still continued in some countries. By 1925, after he had solved all the principles of his process, he had turned to the production of dextrose by hydrolyzing wood with highly concentrated hydrochloric acid.

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SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology, Mining and extraction technology

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Menzies was admitted as a member of the Faculty of Advocates on 31 January 1719. It is evident from his applications for patents that he was more concerned with inventions than the law, however. He took out his first patent in 1734 for a threshing machine in which a number of flails were attached to a horizontal axis, which was moved rapidly forwards and backwards through half a revolution, essentially imitating the action of an ordinary flail. The grain to be threshed was placed on either side.

Though not a practical success, Menzies's invention seems to have been the first for the mechanical threshing of grain. His idea of imitating non-mechanized action also influenced his invention of a coal cutter, for which he took out a patent in 1761 and which copied miners' tools for obtaining coal. He proposed to carry heavy chains down the pit so that they could be used to give motion to iron picks, saws or other chains with cutting implements. The chains could be set into motion by a steam-engine, by water-or windmills, or by horses gins. Although it is quite obvious that this apparatus could not work, Menzies was the first to have thought of mechanizing coal production in the style that was in use in the late twentieth century. Subsequent to Menzies's proposal, many inventors at varying intervals followed this direction until the problem was finally solved one century later by, among others, W.E. Garforth.

Menzies had successfully used the power of a steam-engine on the Wear eight years beforehand, when he obtained a patent for raising coal. According to his device a descending bucket filled with water raised a basket of coals, while a steam-engine pumped the water back to the surface; the balance-tub system, in various forms, quickly spread to other coalfields. Menzies's patent from 1750 for improved methods of carrying the coals from the coalface to the pit-shaft had also been of considerable influence: this device employed self-acting inclined planes, whereon the descending loaded wagons hauled up the empty ones.

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SUBJECT AREA: Mining and extraction technology

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Huntingdon Beaumont was a younger son of a landed family whose estates included coal-mines at Coleorton and Bedworth. From these, no doubt, originated his great expertise in coal-mining and mine management. His subsequent story is a complex one of speculation in coal mines: agreements, partnerships, and debts, and, in trying to extricate himself from the last, attempts to improve profitability, and ever-greater enterprises. He leased mines in 1601 at Wollaton, near Nottingham, and in 1603 at Strelley, which adjoins Wollaton but is further from Nottingham, where lay the market for coal. To reduce the transport cost of Strelley coal, Beaumont laid a wooden wagonway for two miles or so to Wollaton Lane End, the point at which the coal was customarily sold. In earlier times wooden railways had probably been used in mines, following practice on the European continent, but Beaumont's was the first on the surface in Britain. The market for coal in Nottingham being limited, Beaumont, with partners, attempted to send coal to London by water, but the difficult navigation of the Trent at this period made the venture uneconomic. With a view still to supplying London, c.1605 they took leases of mines near Blyth, north of Newcastle upon Tyne. Here too Beaumont built wagonways, to convey coal to the coast, but despite considerable expenditure the mines could not be made economic and Beaumont returned to Strelley. Although he worked the mine night and day, he was unable to meet the demands of his creditors, who eventually had him imprisoned for debt. He died in gaol.

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SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Mining and extraction technology, Railways and locomotives

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The son of a "coal viewer", Curr was brought up in the West Durham colliery district. In 1777 he went to the Duke of Norfolk's collieries at Sheffield, where in 1880 he was appointed Superintendent. There coal was conveyed underground in baskets on sledges: Curr replaced the wicker sledges with wheeled corves, i.e. small four-wheeled wooden wagons, running on "rail-roads" with cast-iron rails and hauled from the coal-face to the shaft bottom by horses. The rails employed hitherto had usually consisted of plates of iron, the flange being on the wheels of the wagon. Curr's new design involved flanges on the rails which guided the vehicles, the wheels of which were unflanged and could run on any hard surface. He appears to have left no precise record of the date that he did this, and surviving records have been interpreted as implying various dates between 1776 and 1787. In 1787 John Buddle paid tribute to the efficiency of the rails of Curr's type, which were first used for surface transport by Joseph Butler in 1788 at his iron furnace at Wingerworth near Chesterfield: their use was then promoted widely by Benjamin Outram, and they were adopted in many other English mines. They proved serviceable until the advent of locomotives demanded different rails.

In 1788 Curr also developed a system for drawing a full corve up a mine shaft while lowering an empty one, with guides to separate them. At the surface the corves were automatically emptied by tipplers. Four years later he was awarded a patent for using double ropes for lifting heavier loads. As the weight of the rope itself became a considerable problem with the increasing depth of the shafts, Curr invented the flat hemp rope, patented in 1798, which consisted of several small round ropes stitched together and lapped upon itself in winding. It acted as a counterbalance and led to a reduction in the time and cost of hoisting: at the beginning of a run the loaded rope began to coil upon a small diameter, gradually increasing, while the unloaded rope began to coil off a large diameter, gradually decreasing.

Curr's book The Coal Viewer (1797) is the earliest-known engineering work on railway track and it also contains the most elaborate description of a Newcomen pumping engine, at the highest state of its development. He became an acknowledged expert on construction of Newcomen-type atmospheric engines, and in 1792 he established a foundry to make parts for railways and engines.

Because of the poor financial results of the Duke of Norfolk's collieries at the end of the century, Curr was dismissed in 1801 despite numerous inventions and improvements which he had introduced. After his dismissal, six more of his patents were concerned with rope-making: the one he gained in 1813 referred to the application of flat ropes to horse-gins and perpendicular drum-shafts of steam engines. Curr also introduced the use of inclined planes, where a descending train of full corves pulled up an empty one, and he was one of the pioneers employing fixed steam engines for hauling. He may have resided in France for some time before his death.

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WK / PJGR

SUBJECT AREA: Mining and extraction technology

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Buddle was educated by his father, a former schoolteacher who was from 1781 the first inspector and manager of the new Wallsend colliery. When his father died in 1806, John Buddle assumed full responsibility at the Wallsend colliery, and he remained as inspector and manager there until 1819, when he was appointed as colliery agent to the third Marquis of Londonderry. In this position, besides managing colliery business, he acted as an entrepreneur, gaining political influence and organizing colliery owners into fixing prices; Buddle and Londonderry were also responsible for the building of Seaham harbour. Buddle became known as the "King of the Coal Trade", gaining influence throughout the important Northumberland and Durham coalfield.

Buddle's principal contribution to mining technology was with regard to the improvement of both safety standards and productivity. In 1807 he introduced a steam-driven air pump which extracted air from the top of the upcast shaft. Two years later, he drew up plans which divided the coalface into compartments; this enabled nearly the whole seam to be exploited. The system of compound ventilation greatly reduced the danger of explosions: the incoming air was divided into two currents, and since each current passed through only half the underground area, the air was less heavily contaminated with gas.

In 1813 Buddle presented an important paper on his method for mine ventilation to the Sunderland Society for Preventing Accidents in Coal-mines, which had been established in that year following a major colliery explosion. He emphasized the need for satisfactory underground lighting, which influenced the development of safety-lamps, and assisted actively in the experiments with Humphrey Davy's lamp which he was one of the first mine managers to introduce. Another mine accident, a sudden flood, prompted him to maintain a systematic record of mine-workings which ultimately resulted in the establishment of the Mining Record Office.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy, Mining and extraction technology

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A scholar of the Mining Academy in Freiberg, who in his dissertation dealt with the fineness of coal dust, Rammler started experiments in 1925 relating to firing this material. In the USA this process, based on coal, had turned out to be very effective in large boiler furnaces. Rammler endeavoured to apply the process to lignite and pursued general research work on various thermochemical problems as well as methods of grinding and classifying. As producing power from lignite was of specific interest for the young Soviet Union, with its large demand from its new power stations and its as-yet unexploited lignite deposits, he soon came into contact with the Soviet authorities. In his laboratory in Dresden, which he had bought from the freelance metallurgist Paul Otto Rosin after his emigration and under whom he had been working since he left the Academy, he continued his studies in refining coal and soon gained an international reputation. He opened up means of producing coke from lignite for use in metallurgical processes.

His later work was of utmost importance after the Second World War when several countries in Eastern Europe, especially East Germany with its large lignite deposits, established their own iron and steel industries. Accordingly, the Soviet administration supported his experiments vigorously after he joined Karl Kegel's Institute for Briquetting in Freiberg in 1945. Through his numerous books and articles, he became the internationally leading expert on refining lignite and Kegel's successor as head of the Institute and Professor at the Bergakademie. Six years later, he produced for the first time high-temperature coke from lignite low in ash and sulphur for smelting in low-shaft furnaces. Rammler was widely honoured and contributed decisively to the industrial development of his country; he demonstrated new technological processes when, under austere conditions, economical and ecological considerations were neglected.

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SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Mining and extraction technology, Railways and locomotives

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In 1808 Blenkinsop became agent to J.C.Brandling, MP, owner of Middleton Colliery, from which coal was carried to Leeds over the Middle-ton Waggonway. This had been built by Brandling's ancestor Charles Brandling, who in 1758 obtained an Act of Parliament to establish agreements with owners of land over which the wagon way was to pass. That was the first railway Act of Parliament.

By 1808 horse haulage was becoming uneconomic because the price of fodder had increased due to the Napoleonic wars. Brandling probably saw the locomotive Catch-Me- Who-Can demonstrated by Richard Trevithick. In 1811 Blenkinsop patented drive by cog-wheel and rack rail, the power to be provided preferably by a steam engine. His object was to produce a locomotive able to haul a substantial load, while remaining light enough to minimize damage to rails made from cast iron which, though brittle, was at that date the strongest material from which rails could be made. The wagonway, formerly of wood, was relaid with iron-edge rails; along one side rails cast with rack teeth were laid beside the running surface. Locomotives incorporating Blenkinsop's cog-wheel drive were designed by Matthew Murray and built by Fenton Murray \& Wood. The design was developed from Trevithick's to include two cylinders, for easier starting and smoother running. The first locomotive was given its first public trial on 24 June 1812, when it successfully hauled eight wagons of coal, on to which fifty spectators climbed. Locomotives of this type entered regular service later in the summer and proved able to haul loads of 110 tons; Trevithick's locomotive of 1804 had managed 25 tons.

Blenkinsop-type locomotives were introduced elsewhere in Britain and in Europe, and those upon the Kenton \& Coxlodge Wagonway, near Newcastle upon Tyne, were observed by George Stephenson. The Middleton locomotives remained at work until 1835.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy, Mining and extraction technology

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John Coster, son of an iron-forge manager in the Forest of Dean, by the age of 38 was at Bristol, where he was "chief agent and sharer therein" in the new lead-smelting methods using coal fuel. In 1685 the work, under Sir Clement Clerke, was abandoned because of patent rights claimed by Lord Grandison, who financed of earlier attempts. Clerke's business turned to the coal-fired smelting of copper under Coster, later acknowledged as responsible for the subsequent success through using an improved reverberatory furnace which separated coal fume from the ores being smelted. The new technique, applicable also to lead and tin smelting, revitalized copper production and provided a basis for new British industry in both copper and brass manufacture during the following century. Coster went on to manage a copper-smelting works, and by the 1690s was supplying Esher copper-and brass-works in Surrey from his Redbrook, Gloucestershire, works on the River Wye. In the next decade he extended his activities to Cornish copper mining, buying ore and organizing ore sales, and supplying the four major copper and brass companies which by then had become established. He also made copper goods in additional water-powered rolling and hammer mills acquired in the Bristol area. Coster was ably assisted by three sons; of these, John and Robert were mainly active in Cornwall. In 1714 the younger John, with his father, patented an "engine for drawing water out of deep mines". The eldest son, Thomas, was more involved at Redbrook, in South Wales and the Bristol area. A few years after the death of his father, Thomas became partner in the brass company of Bristol and sold them the Redbrook site. He became Member of Parliament for Bristol and, by then the only surviving son, planned a large new smelting works at White Rock, Swansea, South Wales, before his death in 1734. Partners outside the family continued the business under a new name.

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SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Mining and extraction technology, Railways and locomotives

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The Wylam wagonway passed Newburn, and Hedley, who went to school at Wylam, must have been familiar with this wagonway from childhood. It had been built c.1748 to carry coal from Wylam Colliery to the navigable limit of the Tyne at Lemington. In 1805 Hedley was appointed viewer, or manager, of Wylam Colliery by Christopher Blackett, who had inherited the colliery and wagonway in 1800. Unlike most Tyneside wagonways, the gradient of the Wylam line was insufficient for loaded wagons to run down by gravity and they had to be hauled by horses. Blackett had a locomotive, of the type designed by Richard Trevithick, built at Gateshead as early as 1804 but did not take delivery, probably because his wooden track was not strong enough. In 1808 Blackett and Hedley relaid the wagonway with plate rails of the type promoted by Benjamin Outram, and in 1812, following successful introduction of locomotives at Middleton by John Blenkinsop, Blackett asked Hedley to investigate the feasibility of locomotives at Wylam. The expense of re-laying with rack rails was unwelcome, and Hedley experimented to find out the relationship between the weight of a locomotive and the load it could move relying on its adhesion weight alone. He used first a model test carriage, which survives at the Science Museum, London, and then used a full-sized test carriage laden with weights in varying quantities and propelled by men turning handles. Having apparently satisfied himself on this point, he had a locomotive incorporating the frames and wheels of the test carriage built. The work was done at Wylam by Thomas Waters, who was familiar with the 1804 locomotive, Timothy Hackworth, foreman smith, and Jonathan Forster, enginewright. This locomotive, with cast-iron boiler and single cylinder, was unsatisfactory: Hackworth and Forster then built another locomotive to Hedley's design, with a wrought-iron return-tube boiler, two vertical external cylinders and drive via overhead beams through pinions to the two axles. This locomotive probably came into use in the spring of 1814: it performed well and further examples of the type were built. Their axle loading, however, was too great for the track and from about 1815 each locomotive was mounted on two four-wheeled bogies, the bogie having recently been invented by William Chapman. Hedley eventually left Wylam in 1827 to devote himself to other colliery interests. He supported the construction of the Clarence Railway, opened in 1833, and sent his coal over it in trains hauled by his own locomotives. Two of his Wylam locomotives survive— Puffing Billy at the Science Museum, London, and Wylam Dilly at the Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh—though how much of these is original and how much dates from the period 1827–32, when the Wylam line was re-laid with edge rails and the locomotives reverted to four wheels (with flanges), is a matter of mild controversy.

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See also: Stephenson, George

SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Mining and extraction technology, Railways and locomotives

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After being educated at Sheffield Grammar School, Thompson and his elder brother established Aberdare Iron Works, South Wales, where he gained experience in mine engineering from the coal-and ironstone-mines with which the works were connected. In 1811 he moved to the North of England as Managing Partner in Bewicke's Main Colliery, County Durham, which was replaced in 1814 by a new colliery at nearby Ouston. Coal from this was carried to the Tyne over the Pelew Main Wagonway, which included a 1,992 yd (1,821 m) section where horses had to haul loaded wagons between the top of one cable-worked incline and the foot of the next. Both inclines were worked by stationary steam engines, and by installing a rope with a record length of nearly 1 1/2 miles (2.4 km), in 1821 Thompson arranged for the engine of the upper incline to haul the loaded wagons along the intervening section also. To their rear was attached the rope from the engine of the lower incline, to be used in due course to haul the empties back again.

He subsequently installed this system of "reciprocal working" elsewhere, in particular in 1826 over five miles (8 km) of the Brunton \& Shields Railroad, a colliery line north of the Tyne, where trains were hauled at an average speed of 6 mph (10 km/h) including rope changes. This performance was better than that of contemporary locomotives. The directors of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway, which was then being built, considered installing reciprocal cable haulage on their line, and then decided to stage a competition to establish whether an improved steam locomotive could do better still. This competition became the Rainhill Trials of 1829 and was decisively won by Rocket, which had been built for the purpose.

Thompson meanwhile had become prominent in the promotion of the Newcastle \& Carlisle Railway, which, when it received its Act in 1829, was the longest railway so far authorized in Britain.

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See also: Rastrick, John Urpeth; Stephenson, Robert

SUBJECT AREA: Mining and extraction technology

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Within the long tradition of celebrated teachers at the Mining Academy in Freiberg, Kegel can be considered as probably the last professor teaching the science of mining who was able to cover all the different disciplines. As was the case with a number of his predecessors, he was able to combine theoretical research work with the teaching of students and to support his theories with the practical experience of industry. He has apprenticed at the Mansfeld copper mines, went to the School of Mines at Eisleben (1896–8), worked as an engineer with various mining companies and thereafter became a scholar of the Berlin Mining Academy (1901–4). For twelve years he taught at the Bochum School of Mining until, in 1918, he was appointed Professor of Mining at Freiberg. There, one year later, as a new approach, he introduced lectures on brown-coal mining and mineral economics. He remained Professor at Freiberg until his first retirement in 1941, although he was active again between 1945 and 1951.

In 1924 Kegel took over a department at the State Research Institute for Brown Coal in Freiberg which he extended into the Institute for Briquetting. In this field his main achievement lies in the initially questioned theory that producing briquettes from lignite is a molecular process rather than the result of bituminous factors. This perception, among others, led Rammler to produce coke from lignite in 1951. Kegel's merits result from having established all the aspects of mining and using lignite as an independent subdiscipline of mining science, based on substantial theories and an innovative understanding of applied technologies.

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SUBJECT AREA: Mining and extraction technology

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After studying law, philosophy and politics at the University of Olmutz (now Olomouc), in 1835 Rittinger became a fellow of the Mining Academy in Schemnitz (now Banská Štiavnica), Slovakia. In 1839, the year he finished at the academy, he published a book on perspective drawing. The following year, he became Inspector of Mills at the ore mines in Schemnitz, and in 1845 he was engaged in coal mining in Bohemia and Moravia. In 1849 he joined the mining administration at Joachimsthal (now Jáchymov), Bohemia. In these early years he contributed his first important innovations for the mining industry and thus fostered his career in the government's service. In 1850 he was called to Vienna to become a high-ranked officer in various ministries. He was responsible for the construction of buildings, pumping installations and all sorts of machinery in the mining industry; he reorganized the curricula of the mining schools, was responsible for the mint and became head of the department of mines, forests and salt-works in the Austrian empire.

During all his years of public service, Rittinger continued his concern with technological innovations. He improved the processing of ores by introducing in 1844 the rotary washer and the box classifier, and later his continuously shaking concussion table which, having been exhibited at the Vienna World Fair of 1873, was soon adopted in other countries. He constructed water-column pumps, invented a differential shaft pump with hydraulic linkage to replace the heavy iron rods and worked on centrifugal pumps. He was one of the first to be concerned with the transfer of heat, and he developed a system of using exhaust steam for heating in salt-works. He kept his eye on current developments abroad, using his function as official Austrian commissioner to the world exhibitions, on which he published frequently as well as on other matters related to technology. With his systematic handbook on mineral processing, first published in 1867, he emphasized his international reputation in this specialized field of mining.

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