The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1897-10-07

huge storage bin several floors beneath.
When empty the scale bin is closed and
the receiving bin opened; so it goes,
this constant operation being kept up
now by nearly four dozen scales. night
and day and Sundays too. - i:-s.i
Below the scale floor comes the: blower
floor, where the grain is freed from dust
and dirt and other foreign accumula-
lions which may injure its standing or
grading as set by the inspector of grain
for the city of Baltimore. This blowing
is done by huge centrifugal fans in
large rectangular boxes, across which
the grain falls by gravity, and the dirt
and dust are thrown to one side by the
air. Here also the grain is run through
a series of screens when necessary, to
remove sticks, clods of dirt and stones.
The next two floors are known respec-
lively as the circle floor and the bin
1lcor, and it is here that one sees the
most apparently inextricable confusion
of ramifying grain chutes. which di-
verge in every direction from great
centralizing circles, and permit the
grain to be distributed far and near to
the various storage and shipping bins.
These two floors are wild and weird,
with little footpath bridges and hand
rails running from circle to circle and
disappearing far away in clouds of fly
ing dust, all of which, coupled with the
dull steady roar of machinery and con-
slant vibration of the entire building,
makes it an uncanny place even in broad
daylight. -.
Before the vast bulk of grain in the
storage bins can be placed in the steam
ers' holds it must go through a COM
plete rehandling. 1t is dropped from
the bottom of the storage bins to the
shipping bin leg and again carried to
the top of the building to the scale floor,
weighed by the shipping scales, and
then stored in the outside series of bins
known as the shipping bins.
When a steamer is to be loaded with
grain these shipping bins are drawn
upon by long chutes hung upon the
outside of the building, which fairly
well adjust themselves to the varying
position of floating vessel. The
weigher keeps tabulated record of all
the grain run into the shipping bins,
and when they are emptied all that is
necessary to determine the amount of
grain delivered to the vessel is to add
up the sum total of his weighing rec
! ord.
The energy and motive power requir red
to accomplish the constant refilling and
depletion of these stupendous granaries
is simply appalling, and as an exempli-
fcation of this fact it. may be said that
the Locust Point elevators herewith il
Illustrated can unload. at their MAXI
mum capacity. 500 cars averaging 200
bushels each day, storing the grain in
their rapacious maws of bins and dis
gorging it again with equal facility. a.1
f. To do all this necessitates the con
ccrted action of an army of employees
and two 1000 horse power engines. The
belts, by the way, which run the hun
dreds and hundreds Of feet Of steel
shafting in these mazes of gigantic,
machinery are alone astounding, for
they measure no less than six feet IN
width and it takes two sections Of $50
feet each to reach to the topof single
building. In fact the exhibition { Of
these tremendous forces wor king as
they arc to-day at herculeans PRESSURE
is profoundly impressive, gaining IN
strength by the mental comparison
with what commerce and mechanical
devices were only q short so years ago,
WILLIAM DINWIDuIH i.
49,