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Taylor hydraulic air compressor.

I'm kind of surprised that there is no signage telling about it on site, just the ruins of the intake pipes. It seems to be historically significant. The old Victoria mine and village is just up the hill.
 
Paul Z ,
Thanks for posting your link.
I had not known about this one .
I thought I had posted a link to this book about the Taylor Hydraulic Air Compressor in another thread some time but I can’t seem to turn it up now .
https://archive.org/details/IllustratedDescriptionOfTheTaylorHydraulicAirCompressorAndTransmission
The Dominion Textile mill in Magog Quebec where the first Taylor Compressor was installed was expanded in 1927 and there are pictures of its construction here .
MP-0000.2089.3 | Construction of Dominion Textile plant, Magog, QC, 1927 | Photograph | Anonyme - Anonymous | McCord Museum

Musée McCord Museum - Results

I believe there was another one that was installed somewhere in British Columbia for a mine but I haven’t found any links to it yet.

Regards,
Jim
 
Fascinating system – thanks for posting.

Background to invention:-

"It may be noted here that Mr. Taylor discovered the principle himself by noting how water flowing down the spillway of a dam carried a certain amount of air with it as it plunged under the surface of the river ice. This air carried downstream by the flowing water, released itself from the water and formed large pockets of air under the ice. This caused the ice to bulge upwards and when he broke one of the pockets and discovered that air under pressure was trapped here….."

Source: Extract from a thesis written by Roy G. Taylor, son of Charles H. Taylor and Mabel Morgan, Oct. 31, 1951, quoted here:-

Charles Havelock Taylor 1859 - 1953: The Hydraulic Air Compressor - a brief history

Biographical information in ‘Charles Havelock Taylor 1859 – 1953 - A testament to the genius and perseverance of a Canadian Engineer, Inventor and Builder’ in blog ‘From Whence He Came’, here:-

Charles Havelock Taylor 1859 - 1953
 
I noticed another article about the Taylor compressor at the Victoria mine here.
https://archive.org/stream/compressedair24wash#page/9357/mode/1up
It is part of a longer article “ The Lure of the Lake Superior Copper Country” that starts here

https://archive.org/stream/compressedair24wash#page/n362/mode/1up

another article about the Pabst Iron Mine in Michigan starts here
https://archive.org/stream/compressedair24wash#page/9441/mode/1up

Other volumes of this magazine can be found here .

https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject:"Compressed+air"

Regards,
Jim
 
I noticed another article about the Taylor compressor at the Victoria mine here.
https://archive.org/stream/compressedair24wash#page/9357/mode/1up
It is part of a longer article “ The Lure of the Lake Superior Copper Country” that starts here

https://archive.org/stream/compressedair24wash#page/n362/mode/1up

another article about the Pabst Iron Mine in Michigan starts here
https://archive.org/stream/compressedair24wash#page/9441/mode/1up

Other volumes of this magazine can be found here .

https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject:"Compressed+air"

Regards,
Jim

Thanks.

I live about 4 miles west of the Pabst mine on the wisconsin side. The mine under my town is a little over 4,300 feet deep.

Took this picture looking straight down the shaft a few years ago.
 
The old guy that got me into machine work told me of the hydraulic compressor and he had some diagrams. This was before the internet was really up to speed, so this is the first really good example and explanation I have run across since. What a brilliant device.
 
Actually there were many pumps working on this principle. We have all seen the picture of Thomas Edison with one of his first light bulbs where he is pouring something into a system of glass tubes. They comprise a Sprengle pump. It was invented by a gent named Sprengle whose name means sprinkle in German, aptly named. He is pumping the air out of the bulb to prevent the filament burning up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprengel_pump

Bill
 
There is a "Marmaduke Surfaceblow" story about a Taylor Hydraulic Compressor. It takes place in some mining town in Canada where there is nickel mining. In the story, the mine's electrically driven air compressor has suffered a major breakdown and the mining operation is stopped for want of compressed air. Marmaduke realizes the workings of an old mine and an un-used wood stave penstock from an old hydroelectric plant all happen to be in correct positions to each other to create a hydraulic air compressor. Marmaduke has the mine's mechanics run an air line some distance from the compressor building to a location where the underground mine was supposed to have had an exploratory core boring done. Marmaduke has the mechanics build a grid of fairly large diameter pipe sections, and has them position this on steel supports over the old mine shaft- the pipe section being vertical and projecting above the mine shaft opening for some distance. Marmaduke then knocks a hole in the wooden penstock (whose staves are conveniently somewhat rotted), and the outpouring of water goes down an unused shaft to the abandoned mine workings. The mine workings open to daylight in another location. As Marmaduke explains it, the water going down the shaft gulps in a lot of air via the array of vertical pipe sections, and that air is entrained in the water. The entrained air then comes out of the water and goes to the highest part of the old mine galleries. That trapped air then builds a head of pressure, which Marmaduke likes to popping the cork out of a champagne bottle. As Marmaduke is giving that explanation, there is a geyser of rock, earth and air suddenly shot into the air at the old core bore location. The core bore location conveniently was sunk in what became the gallery of the mine. Marmaduke then has the mechanics sink a pipe in that core bore and connect it with the mine's compressed air system. Steve Elonka, who wrote the story, referred to as "Free Air".

Apparently the hydraulic air compressor principal was not totally unknown. However, it was not the easiest thing to implement, requiring the right natural features to the terrain in the form of a stream with a continuous flow of water, a rock strata deep enough for the required chamber and drift to be excavated, and rock competent and solid enough to contain compressed air.
 
I was looking through this magazine and found an article about a Hydraulic Compressor at Norwich Conn. from 1902
It starts here .
Engineering news and American railway journal. ... v.47 yr.192 mo.JAN-JUN. - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library | HathiTrust Digital Library
I didn’t look further to see if there as any more about it elsewhere on the internet but I though some folks who posed here some time ago might like to see it .

Other volumes of this magazine available on line can be seen here .
Catalog Record: Engineering news and American railway journal | Hathi Trust Digital Library
I have looked though a couple of volumes and have saved a few other pages to post links to in other threads later.
Regards,
Jim
 








 
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