The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

674 THE MECHANICAL HANDLING OF MATERIAL are covered by an iron roof which is amply provided with skylights. The five boilers and the 500 H.P. engines were installed with a view to the future extension of the plant. The engine is of the compound condensing type, with a high-pressure cylinder of 27 in. diameter, while the low-pressure cylinder is of 52 in. diameter. The stroke is -50 in. The flywheel, built in eight sections, has a diameter of 21 ft., and is grooved for twenty 2-in. ropes. The engine makes 60 revs, per minute. The water for the jet condenser is taken from the river basin. The southern portion of this structure which lies nearest the silo warehouse is raised above the roof of the engine and boiler house, and forms a tower which contains the main shaft, with its pulley receiving the drive by means of the twenty ropes from the engine. There, too, is the hydraulic pumping installation. In the northern portion of the same building is the storekeeper’s department on the lower floor, whilst the upper floor is set aside as a living room for some of the attendants. The granary is surrounded by a system of sidings, with turntables and hydiaulic capstans, which greatly facilitates the work of loading trucks from, or unloading them into, the silo elevators. The Mechanical Equipment of the Granaries.—The whole of the grain-handling plant with which the granaries are equipped is designed as much for the reception as for the discharge of grain. At the edge of the quay are rails with a gauge of 11 ft. 6 in., upon which run two mechanical unloading appliances. The first consists of a telescopic elevator which can be lowered into ships or barges, and which raises the grain and delivers it to one of the two band conveyors at the head of the apparatus, each of which in its turn feeds auto- matic weighing machines with an hourly capacity of 70 tons. 1 hese weighing machines either discharge their load through a manhole in the ground on to a band conveyor, which runs in the tunnel parallel to the quay walls, or the grain is again elevated by means of a second elevator in a slanting position, which delivers the grain at a sufficient height to render easy the loading of railway trucks on the siding which runs parallel with the quay (see Figs. 947 and 948). The driving power is provided by a pair of vertical com- pound engines of 35 H.P., the steam being generated by two vertical tubular boilers. The boilers are fed by two water tanks. A turning gear, which can be driven from the engine or by hand, will so reverse the position of the whole apparatus that the portion which overhangs the water can be turned inland, or vice versa. The whole of the apparatus is mounted on a platform provided with six wheels, the end ones of which are geared to the shafting and move the whole of the unloading plant by power. Ihe unloading capacity is 150 tons of grain per hour. For the purpose of loading ships the telescopic elevator is turned towards the granary, when it can be lowered into any of the fifteen grain wells which are constantly fed with grain by the longitudinal and either of the two transverse bands coming from the silos. The action is then almost identical with that of loading the grain from the boat to the railway trucks, with the exception that the sleeve from which the grain is delivered is lowered down into the ship’s hold instead of into the grain wells. The second loading device is exclusively for loading ships with grain, and is therefore not reversible. It is built on a similar trolley to the last-named apparatus, and is provided with two boilers and a 35 H.P. engine, precisely as the last mentioned. There are two vertical elevators of the ordinary type, one of which fits exactly into the grain wells, into which it can be lowered, whilst the second elevator receives the grain from the first after it has passed through two weighing machines, whereupon it is finally discharged down the telescopic shoot into the ship’s hold. The grain, which is received from barges and other vessels, and is intended to be