the most powerful and effective steam and hydraulic pumping equipment to be found anywhere in the world. Initially, the water was cold, but the deeper workings cut into parts of the mountain where there were heavy flows of hot water (mines don't always work in digging ore. Some parts of a mining operation could be deepening the existing shaft, or exploring for more ore bodies). This water was hot enough to cook an egg or scald a man to death almost instantly. Lives were lost by falling into sumps of this water hot from the geothermal pockets. The hot water called for fans, blowers and various kinds of ventilation apparatus, as miners working in heated drifts had to have a supply of cool air. Compressed air for running power drills and for driving fans and small hoisting engines was adopted in the Comstock mines. Diamond drills for drilling long distances through solid rock were also in general use, but were discarded for prospecting purposes, being found unreliable. Several new forms of explosives for blasting were also developed. Great improvements were also made in the hoisting apparatus and cages used to extract ore and transport the miners to their work. As the depth of the diggings increased, the hemp ropes used to haul ore to the surface became impractical, as their self-weight became a significant fraction of their tensile strength (breaking weight). After hemp rope, iron chains began to become more common. However, fracture was quick, at around half a millisecond. In 1829 Wilhelm Albert had studied and reported on the failure of the iron chains and began creating a twisted metal cabling known as Albert Rope. In 1864 Andrew Smith Hallidie manufactured wire rope and was heavily involved in building early cable bridges and ropeway conveyors; his wire rope went on to be used in San Francisco's famous cable cars, and was also added to the cable drums in the hoist houses on the Comstock Lode. Another innovation was spring loaded cages. The only way in and out of a shaft mine was in the cage, cabled to the hoist. All products, men and supplies, as well as recoverable ore, travels up and down the shaft in a cage. When the hemp rope or chains broke, the cage would plummet uncontrolled to the bottom of the shaft, killing its occupants or destroying its load. Cages were open to the front