The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

THE MECHANICAL HANDLING OF MATERIAL 514 may be placed at any height, and, if desired, the truck may be made to dump from an elevated track at any given point, to build a pile of coal in the storeyard. The track on which the car runs (may be carried by a movable bridge (controlled from the hoisting tower) which will itself serve a wide area. The Lehigh Coal and Iron Co.’s Wharf at West Superior, Wisconsin, U.S.A., is 2,000 ft. long and 300 ft. wide. It is equipped with nine movable elevators and seventy-five “ Hunt ’* automatic railways. The unloading capacity of this plant amounts to 7,000 tons per day. This system is not suitable for large or friable coal on account of the rather rough discharge. The origin of this device is somewhat curious. The first “ Hunt Automatic Railway ” was built in 1871, and appears to owe its existence to a strike of coal wharf operatives. History does not state where this first railway was erected, but it was doubtless in or about New York, the home of the C. W. Hunt Automatic Railway Co.