Ventilation
While underground workers needed to worry about many things that could injure then while in a mine, getting enough air to breath was not one of them. Besides the far ends of drifts that may contain somewhat stale air, the rest of the mine was actuality well ventilated. This was due mostly to the natural movement of air underground, and companies seldom had to employ artificial ventilation in the mines. Colder air on the surface would sink into the shafts as warmer air from deep in the mine would work its way to the surface. This natural movement was enhanced by mines with multiple shafts (as almost all copper mines had) as one shaft would serve as a conduit for cold air to enter the mine, while another shaft would allow the warm air to escape. Miners would refer to these shafts as either downcast shafts (cold air entering) or upcast shafts (hot air exiting). In some mines this flow was so pronounced as to create a strong wind that blew through the drifts and shafts.
The problem arose for those mines consisting of only single shafts, such as the Kingston. While this natural air flow still existed, the single shaft greatly hindered its effectiveness. Cold and hot air would have to share the same conduit, resulting in pocket os stale air throughout the mine. Artificial ventilation would have to be used.
Just past the parking lot turned field north of the mine, we found an odd piece of machinery hidden in the trees. It was a long metal pipe, about four feet in diameter and about a dozen feet high. It sat on a large square timber foundation, and was capped by a large metal funnel. Climbing up onto it we found a nameplate on one side. It was upside down but we could clearly make out that what we were looking at was a ventilation fan for the mine - specifically a Joy Series 1000 Axivane Fan.
This particular machine was manufactured in the mid 50’s by the Joy Manufacturing Company out of New Philadelphia Ohio. Joy was a mining equipment manufacturer, one with which C&H did some substantial business considering the amount of Joy products we found scattered about the mine site. At the time, their Axivane technology was state of the art. Standard fans adjust their air flow by increasing or decreasing the RPM’s of the fan itself. Axivane fans change air flow by changing the pitch of the blades as the fan operates at a constant RPM. This greatly reduced power usage and motor size for these fans, making them a much more efficient machines and specially adaptable for mine ventilation use.
The nameplate on the machine was actually upside down, here I flipped it so you can read it. It was upside down to correctly identify the fan direction and air flow of the unit as it sat. According to this, the fan was used to draw air into the mine. This would make the shaft itself into an upcast shaft. I find this a little puzzling, due to the fact that as the fan now sits would not only suck air into the mine, but also rain, snow, or anything else that happened to drop into the top of it. The shaft, however, would of been covered and would not do this is used as a downcast shaft instead of an upcast shaft.
After taking this picture, I quickly jumped off the machine realizing that I was in fact standing on a mine shaft (although a smaller one). It was then that I noticed a control box laying in the grass. It consisted of a wooden box surrounding a metal electric box and a pair of start/stop buttons. Obviously once used to control the fan, now knocked down and forgotten. I wondered if after all these years, the fan would still work if hooked up to a new power source. I doubt it.
