ely that many if not most were
Stangenkunsten, for mining treatises of the 17th and 18th centuries
testify to the continuous extension of this mechanism.[18]

Perhaps the most striking evidence of its importance is its
representation on the illustrated coinage of the 17th century. These
multiple talers (figs. 1, 2, 3), happy products of the ingenious fiscal
policies of the Dukes of Brunswick, picture mining activity in the 17th
century no less elegantly than do the woodcuts of _De re metallica_ a
century earlier. The Stangenkunst received its most spectacular
application in France, in its application to the driving of the second-
and third-stage pumps in the famous waterworks at Marly (1681-88), but
its real importance is better illustrated in central Europe, by the
many descriptions and drawings showing its use in the mines, driving
machinery as distant as a mile[19] from the source of power.

[Illustration: Figure 7.--FELDGESTANGE (STANGENKUNST) NEAR LAUTENTAL.
From C. Matschoss, _Technische Kulturdenkmal_, Munich, 1932.]

It seems, therefore, that Lohneyss' "old miners" were those described by
Agricola, and that the mine-hauling machinery used in central European
mines changed in the century after him far more than has been
recognized.[20] This thesis may further cast some light on other
technological questions. The connection between the urgency of the
problem of mine drainage in England, and the invention of the steam
engine, has often been suggested.[21] Perhaps the "backwardness" of
Germany in steam-engine experimentation, and later in the introduction
of the Newcomen engine, was to some extent due to the adequacy of
existing machinery to meet the problem of mine flooding, for it is not
clear that this problem existed on the continent.[22]

[Illustration: Figure 8.--THE WATERWORKS AT MARLY-LE-ROI, ON THE SEINE
RIVER, BUILT IN 1684 TO SUPPLY THE FOUNTAINS AT THE ROYAL PALACE AT
VERSAILLES. From a print by de Fer, 1705. (_Smithsonian photo 45593._)]

A comparison of the techniques described by Agricola with those of a
century later suggests that this was a century of significant progress
in that earlier industrial revolution described by Mumford as his
"Eotechnic phase," characterized by "the diminished use of human beings
as prime movers, and the separation of the production of energy from its
application and immediate control."[23]

Footnotes:

[1] W. B. Parsons, _Engineers and engineering in