Meaning of man engine | Babel Free

Definitions

A mechanical lift for raising and lowering people through considerable distances; specifically (mining), a device by which miners ascend or descend in a shaft, consisting of a series of landings or sollars in the shaft and an equal number of shelves on a vertical rod which has an up and down motion equal to the distance between the successive landings. A person steps from a landing to a shelf and is raised or lowered to the next landing, upon which they then step, and so on, travelling by successive stages.

historical

Equivalents

Examples

“The man-engine was like⟳ some gigantic prehistoric monster. I'll never forget⟳ the first time I saw⟳ the man-engine at the Levant. The captain took me to the edge of the shaft and explained to me how the mechanism worked. "The wooden rod plunges, see⟳—up, down, up, down. Up twelve feet, down twelve feet. There are steps all the way down at twelve-foot intervals on the rod, and corresponding platforms—sollars, we call⟳ them—on the sides of the shaft. The rod comes up, you step on, grab⟳ the handle⟳—see⟳?—and then the rod plunges down twelve feet and off you get⟳ onto the sollar. The rod swings up again, you get⟳ on the next step, drop twelve feet, step off onto the sollar, wait⟳, step on, step off—and so on. It takes half an hour from top to bottom."”

CEFR level