Coal mining is difficult and risky work, and one of the dangers in the mine shafts is flooding. While this is something modern equipment can easily handle, the best remedy for flooding in the late seventeenth century was baling with a bucket. The problem caught the attention of English military engineer Thomas Savery (c. 1650-1715), who set out to make draining faster and easier. Savery's solution was to fight fire with fire, or in this case, fight water with steam.
Steam's power had been revealed by French physicist Denis Papin and his pressure cooker in 1679. Papin had observed that bottled-up steam lifted the cooker's lid, and he envisioned steam doing the same to a piston in an engine. Papin's work inspired Savery to put steam to work in the mines. In 1698 Savery patented "The Miner's Friend," a rudimentary steam engine for pumping water from mine shafts.
Savery's device used pressurized steam to force water up a drainage pipe placed with one end in the flooded shaft. Savery's pumping system had dozens of parts—drainage pipes, valves, boilers, connector pipes, steam delivery pipes, condensers, furnaces— and one big limitation: distance. Floodwater would only travel as far as it was forced by the pressure of the steam. Savery's pump had a limit of about 25 feet (7.6 m), which curtailed its use in underground mining.
The distance limitation of Savery's pump was solved by Thomas Newcomen's atmospheric steam engine, but Savery's patent barred Newcomen from manufacturing his machine. The inventor went into business with Savery to avoid legal difficulties, and soon their engines were highly sought after.
