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14 MARINE REVIEW. [April 18, EVOLUTION OF GRAIN ELEVATORS. DESCRIPTION OF THE GREAT NORTHERN ELEVATOR AT THE HEAD OF LAKE SUPERIOR--- SQUARE STRUCTURE OF STEEL. Most people realize the advance of the past few years in the construc- tion and operation of all forms of public utilities, the increase 1n ne unit of carriage both by land and water, the advance in labor-saving mac ae and the wonderful adaptability of the means to the end. But in all t is improvement the grain elevator did not share until a very short time ago. To most the fact that it has changed at all is not realized. Behind its massive walls the pro- cesses carried on are in Greek to : the passer by. But there has been an evolution in elevators as complete and revolutionary as in anything else of the long list. The day of wood is passing away. The day of old imethods of handling in elevators has gone, never to return, and the one man who has had most to do with the change is Mr. James J. Hill of the Great Nor- thern Railway, whose feats in the financial world are more talked about than his prac- tical knowledge of the railroad and associated business,though the latter is probably the more remark- able. Mr, Hill's roads handle to the head of Lake Superior and to Minneapolis about 100,000,000 .bushels of grain a year. This fact is sufficient reason for his advance in methods of elevator con- struction and grain handling. The cost of operating an _ old- style wood elevator is very large, and one of the chief items is insurance, This is from per cent. upward, and when the house with its contents is worth millions the insurance item is a big one. To save this and to do away with numerous men was Mr. Hill's plan, and he began with the erection of a vast steel tank elevator at Buffalo three years ago. Circular steel tanks were not just what was wanted and when he found it necessary two years ago to increase his terminal ca- pacity at the head of Lake Superior he decided to have square bins oi steel. This was then supposed an impossible construction; the depth of bins proposed for the house was thought an impossibility and the chances of raising wheat 250 ft. on friction belts carrying buckets was looked upon askance by experienced builders. All these things and many more as remarkable innovations have been accomplished by the builders of the Great Northern elevator S, at the head of Lake Superior. This is what is known as a terminal elevator, one that receives grain from the cars that bring it from the farms and stores until wanted for ship- ment by water to its destination. As such it must have appliances for cleaning the dirt contained in the grain as it comes from the threshers. for weighing and storing it, for maintaining the integrity of various grades, or brands, as they might be called, or for giving to: individual shippers special bins for their own grain. It must also be fitted to weigh out to ships with the utmost exactness, to load rapidly and to carry on all its operations under the watchful eye and close scrutiny of the officials of the state, who are put in charge to care for the interests of the ship- per. In the construction of a terminal elevator, therefore, many new mechanical refinements are -necessarily introduced, and mechanical con- trivances must be twisted and fitted to meet the requirements of the situ- ation. While steel elevators have been built before they have been marine and storage merely, of simple design, and never containing the niceties of construction that are placed in the terminal house. To work out these principles and appliances in cold steel, so to speak, all on a scale far beyond anything attempted heretofore (there are ten miles of steel spouts alone in this elevator) has required a daring and skill far exceeding that shown by any engineer of a wood house, however vast. A GRAIN STORE HOUSE OF ENORMOUS CAPACITY, Nine freight cars, grain laden, can be brought into this elevator on each of two tracks at one time, and simultaneously unloaded. Each train of nine cars is attached to a grip cable that runs over a sheave of 96 in, diameter, and as it enters the building the several cars, whatever their length, stand directly over long steel gratings above inverted pyramids of concrete hoppers, into which descend the belts carrying the elevating buckets. These hoppers are each 20 ft. wide, to catch the grain from both tracks, and each is 34 ft. long, so that the nine form almost a continuous hopper the length of the house. These are so much longer than usual in order that the cars need not be uncoupled and spotted, which would take a moment or two of time. Running on tracks attached to brackets in the walls are automatic shovels for unloading the cars, and these shovels are also arranged so that they can be spotted directly to the front of each car door. These shovels work automatically and are put in the proper location by power grips. Running to the bottorn of the hoppers are endless rubber composition belts carrying a multitude of small buck- ets which scoop up the grain and hoist it to the very top of the house, the upper part of each belt running into one of nine steel towers. The new steel elevator at West Superior consists of the usual ele- ments--a storage house of bins below, a cupola above containing the machinery and elevating and transferring machinery. The house has many distinctive features that mark it as different from anything yet built. Among these are its square steel bins 85 ft. high with hopper bottoms of steel plate rectangular at top and running to a cone at the outlet under- neath, the whole immense weight mounted on steel columns 40 ft. above the ground; the elaboration of the transferring and hoisting apparatus and appliances; the unusual cleaning methods, the systems by which the whole house can be maintained at any operation without closing any other part; the movable shovels for unloading cars, before described; the return to the stationary spout system, and the application of electricity to all machinery drives. The elevator is built throughout of soft open hearth steel under rigid specifications, and every part is treated to one coat of boiled oil with one- tenth lampblack, all parts difficult of access having two coats. There are 10,000 tons of plates and angles and 400 tons of sheet steel and small angles. The house with its contents of wheat will weigh about 104,000 tons. It is situated on the Superior side of the harbor of Duluth-Superior on a slip a quarter of a mile long and affording 20 ft. of water at the end of railway yards, with room for 1,200 cars. Two tracks run through the house and at the end of the yard is a single track 80-ft. transfer table feeding twelve tracks. The individual yard for this house contains 160 Cars. Beginning at the foundations, the elevator is set upon 4,600 piles each 40 to 50 ft. long and 14 in. through, and each was driven by water jet and heavy steam hammer to refusal. The water jet sets one pile by driving the adjoining one and does not broom the end of the pile. Each pile is capped by heavy timber heads bolted on. On clusters of these piles timber grillage was set, upon which concrete pedestals of a rich mixture of Portland cement bound by iron rods hold the bases of the steel col- umns, each of which latter weighs five tons. Along the entire length of the structure, on the receiving side, are the concrete receiving hoppers, cach surrounded by sheet piling cofferdams. The floor is of heavy cement. SHOVEL SYSTEM IS MOST INTERESTING. Above is the main floor, 32 ft. to the base of the bins over it. On this floor are two parallel railway tracks over the receiving hoppers. These hoppers are each 35 ft. long and are covered with the usual steel grating. To add to dispatch of unloading cars there are eighteen large automatic shovels, each hung from a track in the side of the columns and each running freely on its own track. There is one shovel for every car that can be brought into the house at one time. An automatic grip brings a shovel readily and quickly to the door of any car and the unloading is in remarkably rapid time with one man to each shovel. Lach line of nine shovels is run by two sets of rope drive, and the utmost ingenuity has been shown in handling the rope through the several shovels and their various pulleys. Indeed, the shovel system and its unique elaboration is one of the many interesting features of this elevator. On the water side of this floor is the cleaning machinery, consisting of eignt groups of ma- chines, five to a group. These machines will scalp, grade and clean the grain at one continuous operation. For reasons that every elevator man will understand the operation of the cleaning machines is among the most important in the entire elevator. A veritable forest of spouts reaches down from the bottom of the bins toward the floor, for the transferring of grain from one series of bins to another, from the hduse pockets to the shipping bins, to the cleaners or to any other part of the great house. : Rising from the main floor are the rectangular steel bins, 607 in number, varying in size from a capacity of 12,200 bushels to less than 2,000 bushels. They are 85 ft. high, higher than any elevator bin has ever been made. The pressure of wheat on the sides of bins is so great that it was not considered safe to raise the bins more than 65 to 70 ft. The steel plates forming these bins are in seventeen course of 5 ft. each, and the steel of the two lower courses are 5-16 in. thick, that of the succeed- ing four are % in. and the remaining eleven are 3-16 in. The bins vary from 16.9 ft. by 13.5 ft. to 6.75 ft. by 4.5 ft. in horizontal: section. There is, of course, an immense pressure against the sides of the bins, which have not the circular form to give the strength that is relied upon in all