Up Cast Tube/Tower Used since the Meiji Era (1868-1912)
February 1965

Meiji yori Haiki-to
[Up Cast Tube/Tower Used since the Meiji Era (1868-1912)]
38.0 x 54.3 cm Painting in Watercolors and Ink

Main Text
This up cast tube/tower was made of wood and it was about 6 shaku (1.8 m) in width and about 15 meters in height. It was used at S Coal Pit run by Mr. A. No other coal pit used such a tall up cast tube/tower. Some coal pits had vertically-built mouths of their up casts. Other coal pits made use of the mountain slopes when cutting their return air ways. Fans were installed in only a few coal pits which had trouble with gas in the late Meiji era. The engines for these fans were not compound types (double-expansion steam engines with low and high-pressure cylinders) but normal double-cylinder-type steam engines. In the Taisho era (1912-1926), some middle-scale coal pits also started using compound-type steam engines.
(This tube/tower fell down after being hit by a typhoon in 1905, but it was rebuilt later. Some coal pits with more than 100 workers had two smaller towers.)
I did not use Chinese characters representing "Up Cast Tower or Haiki-to" in the title, but used katakana. It is because miners hated the character representing "tower or to" and used the character representing "tube or to" instead.
[Translator's Notes: The Chinese character representing "tower" originally means "stupa" and probably reminded them of a tomb stone.]

Text in the Inset
Centrifugal lubricators have been used to lubricate cranks, crankshafts, and crank pins since the beginning of the Taisho era. Mechanical governors (regulators) have been used since the Meiji era. The belt was composed of a few cotton ropes.

Text at the Bottom Left
Old San-nai Coal Pit was opened in 1896 and closed in 1910. It was changed to the present Aso Farm near National Highway 201, used as a bus route between Tagawa and Iizuka. The present San-nai Coal Pit lies to the south of the old pit. It was opened in 1895 but stopped mining for some time, because the water from the pit included a lot of iron and draining the water was difficult. However, it started mining again in 1907.


Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro

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