Litchfield enquirer., 1861-06-27

twelve biAs, and the corner-ones rather more- And this whole stratum of bins, if may so call it, with it's vast bulk of 750,OOO bushels of grain is suspended betreen the first and the top most floor of the building. Of course the vertical and the lateral pressure are both immense, To provide against the first the lower story is com plete colonade of immense upright timbers, sup porting cross-beams almost innumerable, and to provide against.the latter complete net work of tough iron rods binds the building together in every direction. Such is a grain warehouse with it's stocks of grain safely slowed away.
 Now let us look at it's facilities for discharg- ing it's immense load It caa load four ships at a time, two on each side, and at such a rate that it takes only from two hours and half to three hours to load ship of 900 tons. carrying gener. ally about twenty thousand bushels " ?
 They were loading one this morning, and as the grain poured from two spouts into the ves- sel, both fore and aft we could see it sink visi- bly, lower, and lower during the single moment that we looked. The mode of doing this is very simple. The grain is drawn out from the bot tom of the bins into the same elevators and car rled to another set of weighing hoppers, each one of which. holding about 24,OOO pounds, they can fill in three minutes. Here it is measured again, by weight, and drawn directly of, through rapidly stopping tubes, passing through the walls, and there connecting with other seoiril tubes, directly into the hold of the vessel. The mode of loading cars is similar, except that, in that case, the grain passes down inside the build ing to where it was first taken from. Thus the shipping is completed, and we see how the ware house can stand empty again. Of course in all these processes there some waste, but it is uery triiing when considering the vast amounts han dled. This falls of course on the proprietors, as they give out the same that they received. I will now notice one or two other features of this particular establishment and am done
 Connected with the last mentioned set of weighing hoppers are troughs passing down to the first floor, and if man brings car load of grain and wants it put in bags, it is carried up to these hoppers and passed directly down these troughs one or two bushels at time, as the case may be, and poured cut into the bags. A car load is thus handled very speedy. Most of the workmen are on the first and topmost floors, and they communicate by speaking tube and by the band of weltng before mentioned, calling attention to each other by @ bell both above and below. On the sides too of the elevator troughs is an index, which, when car is completely un- loaded the men below pull down and it shuts up the trough. When the weigher, has his hopper empty and is ready for another load, he pulls it up again and opens the trough. Thus it is both an index and guard against mixing the grains. The elevators are all so arranged that one can be thrown out of gearing and stopped while the rest are in motion. Thus they use one or many as they choose. And finally to protect against fire, first, the boilers are so arranged that they can pour their whole flood of steam through the building to quench it, next, preserved water is distributed in casks, through the upper story, and finally two great tanks are near the roof from which by turning simple valve, they can flood the whole establishment. Here then we have complete, in all it's details, Chicago grain warehouse, peculiar institution, growing out of the grain trade of the Great West, at once very profitable and very interesting to the uninitiated Long may they flourish!
 Yours, Truly. H. c. J.