16th–19th century · 1722 · 1749 The water problem, and the tajchyVoda v baniach a tajchy

By the eighteenth century the shafts were far below the water table and the single biggest cost in the district was lifting water out. The answer was to make water do the work: tajchy, artificial reservoirs on the hills above the town, catching rain and snowmelt and releasing it through wheels that drove the pumps and the hoists. Sixty of them were built between the early sixteenth century and the middle of the nineteenth, holding some seven million cubic metres, fed by 72 kilometres of collecting channels and 57 kilometres of feeder channels contoured along the slopes. The engineers were Matej Kornel Hell, his son Jozef Karol Hell and the surveyor Samuel Mikovíni; in 1749 the younger Hell built the first of his water-column engines in the Leopold shaft, and eight were working by 1770. This system is the reason deep mining was possible here at all — and in 1722 the first steam engine on the European mainland was set up in this same district, at Nová Baňa.V 18. storočí boli šachty hlboko pod hladinou podzemnej vody a najväčšou položkou v celom rudnom revíri bolo čerpanie. Riešenie znelo: nech vodu zdvíha voda. Tak vznikli tajchy — umelé vodné nádrže na kopcoch nad mestom, ktoré zbierali dážď a topiaci sa sneh a púšťali ho na kolesá poháňajúce čerpadlá a ťažné stroje. Od začiatku 16. do polovice 19. storočia ich postavili šesťdesiat s celkovým objemom asi sedem miliónov kubických metrov, napájaných 72 kilometrami zberných a 57 kilometrami náhonových jarkov vedených po vrstevniciach. Stavali ich Matej Kornel Hell, jeho syn Jozef Karol Hell a zememerač Samuel Mikovíni; roku 1749 postavil mladší Hell v šachte Leopold prvý zo svojich vodnostĺpcových strojov a do roku 1770 ich pracovalo osem. Bez tohto systému by hlbinné baníctvo tu vôbec nebolo možné — a roku 1722 postavili v tom istom revíri, v Novej Bani, prvý parný stroj na európskej pevnine.