Tonopah daily bonanza. [volume] (Tonopah, Nev.) 1906-1929, 1907-10-20
THE ELEPHANTS
JOB HAS GONE

features OF industrial life must nee
essarily give place TO more mechani-
cal methods. This is well exempli-
fed In the matter of the famous
working elephants of India and Bur
ma, says the New York times. Only
a few years ago thousands of these
intelligent creatures were at work in
the teak forests of India and Burma
hauling logs from their jungle habi-
tat to the nearest stream, where the
timber was fioated down TO town
like Rangoon and Moulmein, there
TO be received by other gangs of
working elephants, who carried the
huge logs to the sawmills and after
ward stacked them in great piles,
waiting shipment.
Now, however, trained elephant
laborers are cheap in the great pen
insula, and the Indian government is
no longer worried by poachers on
their big game preserves who may
want TO trap an elephant worth pos
sibly $500. The cause of this slump
is the introduction of American
wire ropeways, which are perhaps
seen at their best in the Anaimalais,
or Elephant mountains of southern
India.
This is a region of forest-clad
hills not yet penetrated by any rail-
road, so that for ages the dense
jungles of valuable mahogany and
teak have been undisturbed save
by wild elephants and tigers. Ten
years ago, however, certain conces-
sion were granted from Calcutta,
and gangs of tame working elephants
were imported to haul the logs, as in
Burma, But the question of roads
or rather tracks, proved a great diff
ficulty. Moreover, it was all but i'm
possible for white men to work in
these hills, owing to the prevalence
of malaria.
Draft bullocks were tried, but the
torrential downpours made the
mountain tracks impossible Now,
however, there are aerial wire rope
ways running from the crest of the
hills and entirely dispensing with the
old ghaut road, which was built at
great expense. The pioneer ropeway
was built by the engineers of the In
dian forest department. Between
terminals it is perhaps 1900 yards
long, and quite simple in principle.
| A loaded. carriage travels down the
main fixed rope by gravitation and
hauls up an empty carriage on the
same rope. The two meet in the
center, and they are transferred by
an ingenious arrangement invented
by st. Louis firm.
From one end to the other there
is fall of nearly 1000 feet, and the
aerial track crosses two main valleys
and many deep gorges. Any kind OF
road would be quite impossible in
country so wild and rocky. There
are twelve main spans, the smallest
one of 355 feet and the greatest
1875 feet. The fixed rope is two and
seven-eighths inches in circumfer-
ence, of six strands, and with a
hempen core: each strand contains
seven wires of the finest steel.
The carriage consists of two curv.
ed wrought iron hangers land loads
of nearly 1000 pounds can be sent
down in great numbers both swiftly
and surely. The installation of this
aerial ropeway through the dense
forest was a tiresome matter. An.
chorages had to be prepared for the
supports; and since there were nc
natural rock in the right places, fiji.
teen ton boulders were dragged ar
and down by elephants and dropped
into position at each end of the line
Holes were then drilled in the bould
ers for the legs of the iron bars, af.
ter which the rope was unreeled
The big reels or bobbins, of which
there were two, weighed four ton.
| each.
1t was proposed to carry this stee
rope up the hills on the shoulders Of
aboriginal tribesmen, but the wild
and broken nature of the country
made this impossible. Eventually
elephants were attached to the end Of
the rope to haul 1t up; and so great
was the friction caused by the rope:
dragging that near the end of The
journey no fewer than fourteen ele
plants were in use, together with ;
large number of natives.
Supports for the hangers and sad
dies vary in height up to eighty feet
and consist of two uprights and {
stout crossbar. In places giant for
est trees have been used as supports
and so rugged and broken is tn,
country that in one place the rope il
nearly 400 feet from the ground 1