The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1876-04-14
A LARGE WAREHOUSE,

A short distance from and at right an.
giles with these piers, is warehouse about
$50 feet long by so feet broad, used as 81
store for rice alone, and is built over the
water on piles, so that vessels may be dis
charged of their cargoes with dispatch.
THE GRAIN ELEVATORS.
In close proximity to this warehouse
and on either side of it, are two grain ele-
vators, the smaller of which has canocitv
Of 5000 bushels; the larger-prebablv the
most capacious and complete in the world
is 800 feet long by 80 feet wide ID sto.
ries or 200 feet high, and has amnle ac-
commodation for million and a.bolf
bushels of grain. Eight large vessels NAV
be freighted from these elevators at the
same time, it requiring but four or five
hours, against four or five days previous
to their erection. The machinery used
for conducting the grain through the MANY
departments of these elevators is 80 com.
plicated that it almost battles description
Hence will give but the general princi-
pies of its moaus operandi, and the course
which the grain takes from its entrance to
its exodus.
At tho head Of each of these elevators
are two steam engines, those of the LARGER
building being 500 horse power each.-
These engines drive shafts, belts and com
plicated machinery in every story of the
buildings. Two trains of cars lader
with grain may at the same time pass into
the larger elevator, where gangs of labor
ers shovel their contents into bins, from
which the grain passes with great rapidity
in the buckets OF the endless chains TO the
highest story Of the building, whence it
takes downward course, through SHOUTS
and gauges into the stories below, each of
which has different system of machinery
by which the grain in passing through is
culled, weighed, graded or stored, as &C.
casion may require, until it reaches the
tubes which conduct it to the vessels
CAR SHOPS &C.
Besides the buildings enumerated there
are car shops and other buildings of less
Importance, about which is laid a net work
of car tracks, covering an area of twenty.
five acres, over which locomotives are CON
tinually rolling.
Three powerful steam tug boats are en-
gagged between this and minor depots of
the city, in propellng barges which carry
ten laden cars or 200 tons each.
The general freight Office, in which are
employed about fifty clerks, is situated on
an elevation short distance from the
many buildings in which manual labor is
performed, and is connected to them by
telegraph lines, which are used to system
atize and facilitate the vast army of rail
readers.
IN CASE OF FIRE.
The company insures none of this valu-
able property but has private fire depart
mcnt, which is the most extensive efficient
and thoroughly organized of any company,
private or municipal, whose workings have
come under my observation.
Of this department will give general
outline. There are about fifty athletic
iremen working in the warehouses, who
may he summoned at q moments notice
by the blowing of steam whistles, and the
tapping of large fire bell, which hangs
in central location and is connected by
wires to electric batteries in all the impor-
ant buildings, and peals out the number
IF the battery from which it receives the
electric current, thereby directing the fire.
men to the exact location of the fire
Nearly all the stationary engines are util-
zed as fire eXtinguishers, besides three !
locomotive fire engines and the engines of |
three tug boats, which of themselves force
seven large streams Of water to an altitude
If 200 feet.
A person of little curiosity might here
ind in a few hours objects of sufficient in
crest to keep up lively train of specula,
ion for some time.
The business successes and progressive |
of this depot are in great
owing to the far sightedness and
lntiring energy of L. F. Beeler-the pres
mt General Agent-and his efficient aids,
'mong the more prominent of whom are
Nessrs. Musser, White, Leary, Holloway,
stokes, Clarke and Ashcroft. Mr.. Ashcroft |
las for the past seven years devoted him
elf TO an undated study of the company's
interest. ID.