Francisco Uville

Francisco Uville
Born	François Uville c. 1781 Switzerland
Died	August 1818 Peru
Nationality	Swiss / Peruvian
Occupation	Entrepreneur
Known for	Mechanisation of Peruvian mining

Francisco Uville (born François Uvillé, c. 1781 – August 1818) was a Swiss entrepreneur who helped introduce steam engines into the mining industry of Peru. Through his efforts engines designed and built by the Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick were shipped to Peru and carried high over the Andes to the silver mines, where they were used to pump water and hoist ore. Uville went well beyond the mandate agreed with his partners in his arrangements to obtain the equipment. He died before seeing the enterprise collapse in 1820 during the Peruvian War of Independence.

Francisco Uville was born in Switzerland. He was about 36 years old in 1817, so would have been born around 1781. Uville was a watchmaker by trade.

As a young man Uville visited the rich silver mines of the Pasco Region about 150 miles (240 km) from Lima, Peru. 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. However, on average it was only about 200 feet (61 m), below ground level. Any mine deeper than the socavón would have to be drained by hand pumps and buckets. When Uville visited them, the silver mines had reached the socavón level and were now almost abandoned. It struck Uville that the mines could be worked much deeper by using steam engines to pump out the water.

Uville visited England in 1811 and spent a few months in London. He met the Boulton and Watt engineers, who told him it would not be possible to build low-pressure steam engines that would work efficiently in the thin air of the mountains round Cerro de Pasco, around 14,000 feet (4,300 m) above sea level. 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. However, while in London Uville chanced on a working model of Richard Trevithick's high-pressure steam engine, which he saw in the window of the engine maker William Rowley. He was struck by the simplicity of its design and how well it was built, and bought the model for 20 guineas. He took it back to Peru and successfully tested it at Cerro de Pasco. 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.

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