Francisco Uville
Francisco Uville (born François Uvillé, c. 1781 – August 1818) was a Swiss entrepreneur who helped introduce steam engines into the mining industry of Peru.
[2] As a young man Uville visited the rich silver mines of the Pasco Region about 150 miles (240 km) from Lima, Peru.
[3] The Yanacancha socavón, an adit or tunnel 5,000 feet (1,500 m) long, had been completed in 1811 to drain the mines into the San Judas lake.
[5] It would also be impossible to make an engine that could be disassembled into pieces small enough to be carried by mule along the narrow track to the mines, which reached 17,000 feet (5,200 m) above sea level.
[10] Water boiled at this altitude at about 80 °C (176 °F) compared to 100 °C (212 °F) at sea level, but still produced ample steam and drove the engine as well as it had in London.
[11] On 17 July 1812 Uville joined the leading Lima merchants Pedro Abadia and Jose Aresmendi to form a company to drain the mines around Cerro de Pasco.
[2] The company would provide the capital to buy and transport the steam engines and to install them over a pit dug down to 111 feet (34 m) below the Yanacancha socavón.
[19] Transporting the equipment from the coast to Cerro de Pasco took much longer than expected, in part because the Indian communities along the way would not provide the necessary manpower.
[17] However, William Bull put the first steam engine into operation at the Santa Rosa mine near Cerro de Pasco on 27 July 1816.
[17] The official report to the Viceroy, published in the Lima Gazette in August 1816 said, Immense and incessant labours and boundless expense have conquered difficulties hitherto deemed insuperable; and we have, with unlimited admiration, witnessed the erection and astonishing operations of the first Steam Engine.
It is established in the royal mineral territory of Taüricocha in the province of Tarma; and we have had the felicity of seeing the drain of the first shaft in the Santa Rosa mine, in the noble district of Pasco.
We are ambitious of transmitting to posterity the details of an undertaking of such prodigious magnitude, from which we anticipate a torrent of silver that shall fill surrounding nations with astonishment.
[25] The Lima Gazette of 12 February 1817 reported Don Ricardo Trevithick's arrival, saying, "This professor can, with the assistance of the workmen who accompany him, construct as many engines as are necessary in Peru, without any need of sending to England for any part of these vast machines.
R. Trevithick, and his ardent desire for promoting the interests of Peru, recommend him in the highest degree to public estimation, and make us hope that his arrival in this kingdom will form the epoch of its prosperity, with the enjoyment of the riches enclosed in it ..."[26] The machinery in Cerro de Pasco had developed various problems that the Cornish craftsmen could not fix until Trevithick arrived.
[29] Uville's death in August 1818 was "in consequence of the cold penetrating air of the Cordilleras on coming out of the mines in a strong perspiration.
