No. 4 Boiler House (and Man-shaft)
Before the acquisition of the Pewabic Mine (which became North Quincy), the Quincy Mine consisted of a total of nine shafts. As time progressed and technology improved Quincy closed down most of these shafts and concentrated its efforts on only three: the no. 2, no. 4, and no. 7. In addition to these shafts, Quincy also utilized a man shaft between the No. 2 and No. 4. This shaft was equipped with a man engine - a type of mechanical ladder used to bring men down into the mine.
Today that man-shaft is still open, capped by a steel cage known as a “bat cage”. The “bat cage” keeps people from falling into the shaft, but allows bats - which use the mine as a home - to come and go as they please. The cage also allows for some nervous views down into the shaft. (Warning! Even with the bat cage in place this shaft can still be dangerous!)
Using the zoom lens and doing some post-production enhancement you can get a better view of the shaft further down. You can make out what looks like a timber (on the left) and a compressor/water line hook-up of some type (on the right).
Sitting almost directly behind the man-shaft is the ruins of a boiler house. Boiler houses are easy to spot because they are accompanied by a smoke stack of some type. In this case the stack is gone, but the stone foundation on top of which it stood is still there.
Inside the building you can make out the flue through which the smoke and gasses from the boilers were vented into the smoke stack. Sitting on the ground below it was part of the ductwork used to connect the boilers to the stack. Another piece of the ductwork can still be seen inside the flue. Due to the high heat funneled through the ductwork, the hole was lined with brick which could withstand higher heat then poor rock (which the rest of the structure was built from).
Interestingly this boiler house had a second flue hole, on the opposite end of the building. This mean it had two smokestacks, which is something we hadn’t come across yet. At first this was puzzling - why would you need two separate stacks? Boiler houses usually contained a line of boilers - all of which shared a single stack. Two stacks would seem to imply two separate lines of boilers. But why?
Later we discovered the answer by doing a little research. In this photo you can see the boiler house in question - back when it was still in one piece. You can clearly make out two stacks - so our observations on the ground were correct. But, again, why? I think the answer lies in how this boiler house is identified and its location in relation to other structures.
This building is marked in two different ways - depending on the source I use. Some sources label it as the “No. 4 Boiler House” while others label it the “No. 2 Boiler House”. I think it was in fact both. Before the new monster hoist at the No. 2 was built (along with its own boiler house), the No. 2’s hoist use to sit in a small building not too far from our boiler house. Also sitting nearby - on the opposite side - is the No. 4 hoist building. My theory is that the boiler house served both shafts, one set of boilers and smokestack for each.
Tomorrow: More No. 4 Surface Plant…
UPDATE: In case anyone is curious, here’s a shot of what that man-engine looked like when it was being used:
Mike,
You’re already getting pretty good with that new camera. The depth of field on the pic of the boiler house with the shaft house in the back is superb!!!
BTW, it would really suck to drop that nice new camera down the bat cage.
In the Cliff book, there’s an illustration of a man engine. It kind of reminds me of a real life Mario game. There were 2 poles with 18″ square platforms to stand on right next to each other. They moved in a scissor like direction. You would stand on one platform that went up while the other set went down. Then it would cange direction and would step across to the opposite platform which would then go up. You would do this back and forth hop until you reach the top (or bottom).
Sorry I haven’t gotten the Cliff maps over yet, we just had a little explorer on Saturday and that’s been taking up most of my time. I’ll try to shoot those over along with the man lift pic.
Jay Balliet | April 29, 2008
Jay…
Thanks for the compliments - but the photo is question is photoshopped. I would love to be able to create the effect in the field, but in some ways its easier to add it later. That way I can put emphasis on exactly what I want. BTW I’ve been doing the emphasis trick for years - either with the focus shift or by dropping saturation or by adding grain. Hope I didn’t disappoint ya!
That man-engine contraption was kind of wicked. The Super Maria analogy is great - exactly what you’d expect on a level. I thought the things would be extremely dangerous - but then again - what part of mining isnt?
No rush on the maps - we got some more snow here over the weekend and the temps are still rather cold. I probably won’t be out there for at least another week or two. What’s “a little explorer” anyway?
explorer | April 29, 2008
Mike –
Awesome. I love staring down that shaft, as freaky as that is!
Best way to get a nice blurry background is to use the widest aperture you can.
To do that on your camera, set the little control dial to Av mode (Aperture Priority) and use the command dial to turn it to the smallest number you can (probably f/3.5 is the best you can do). To do this, keep your lens zoomed as far out as you can, probably 18mm if I remember right, otherwise your maximum aperture will become smaller.
Alternately, zooming way IN can also make a nice narrow depth of field, but of course you have to stand waaaaay back and hold it very steady to make that work!
dcclark | April 29, 2008
Little Explorer=Baby Girl!!!
Jay Balliet | April 29, 2008
Jay…
Well why didn’t you just say so? Congratulations!! You’ll be dragging her out in a wagon to the Centennial No. 3 before you know it! I remember doing that all the time with my son the first year I started this blog, and let me tell you, pulling a wagon up and down the Q&TL grade is tougher then it looks!
Once again, congratulations and hopefully she won’t take up all your time (daddy need some exploring time of course)…
explorer | April 29, 2008
Here are a couple sites with pics of man-engines.
PHOTO ONE
Search the page for “man-engine”, or scroll down about half way and you’ll see it on the left below a mass copper pic. It’s a distant shot from the side, but you can see the men standing on the platforms. It also shows the angle at which the man shaft descended. The caption says it’s Quincy’s man engine.
A better shot is avialable here
PHOTO TWO
Again scroll down the page about half way and this time you’ll see a front-on shot of men standing on the platforms.
Finally, this page
PHOTO THREE
has a photo of the man engine model at the Quincy “museum”, taken by Capt. Paul, former Quincy mine guide and frequent contributor at the Pasty Cam site. The model shows some of the mechanism at the surface that raised the “rods” holding the platforms up and down.
I seem to recall reading that the first man-engine in North America was installed at the Cliff Mine, but I’ve never found any photos of that.
Dale Beitz | April 30, 2008
Dale..
Thanks for the pic links (I edited them for sake of clarity) showing some man-engines. In addition to those I posted a shot of the Quincy’s man-engine itself in its hay-day. Scroll down to the bottom of this post to see it.
explorer | April 30, 2008
Mike,
Two words: Burley D’Lite. It’s a trailer you pull behind a bicycle that will hold two kids. Some of the best money I ever spent.
Dale,
You’re right about the Cliff having the first man-engine in North America. They had an issue getting people who were willing to climb 1000′ of rickety ladders underground. Miners were leaving in droves. Once the man-engine was installed, they could get everyone to the surface in about 30 minutes.
Jay Balliet | April 30, 2008
I’m sorry, but I’d want to climb in and ride down.
http://miningartifacts.homestead.com/files/photo21_1_.jpg
Jay Balliet | April 30, 2008
BTW Dale, That second link is great!!! I sorta skimmed it, but it looks like there’s lots of great info on there.
Jay Balliet | April 30, 2008