Evening star., 1936-03-14
Ancient Flying Chair"
Sire of the Modern Lift,
Had Unhappy Beginning
Mishaps in Early Days of Vertical Transpor-
tation Led to Inventions for Safety
in Use at Present.
upward, into the blue air.

upward, into the blue air.
The more I thought about elevators
the more interested became. Finally
I went to work and conducted a little
research into the subject of my own.
The first item dug up was the fact
that the earliest record of any one
getting stuck in an elevator shows
that the victim was a woman! And o
Kings daughter, at that!
IT SEEMS that about the close OF
the seventeenth century a French
man named Villayer constructed a
lifting apparatus of one passenger
capacity, which he named 1.-The flying
chair" 1t was simplicity itself-just
chair attached to a single rope which
passed over a pulley (or its equiv
alent), with a weight at the other end
to act as a counterbalance. 1t was
very popular in the palace at versailles,
where it was installed. until one day.
when the Kings daughter was halted
in midair because the machinery re-
fused to work! There she stayed for
three hours or more, before she was
rescued by her servants, who had to
tear down wall to do so. The flying
chair" was not highly esteemed after
the incident!
The first record that can be found,
apparently, of any lifting device SINH
lar to the modern elevator is IN VII.
ruvius, who described a hosting ma
chine worked by ropes coiled upon
winding drum, by capStan and levers,
about 230 years before Christ. He
also mentions another elevator,
which was worked by men walking
in the capstan-and one like this
has been found in recent years still
in use in a convent on Mount Sinai.
About the middle of the eighteenth
century. a gentleman by the name
of Thornier, also Frenchman, in
vented a lift which worked outside
the balcony under his window. He
amused himself by going up and
down in the great open spaces for
some years. until one day the ma
chinery broke and he never went up
and down anywhere again!
IN 1850 Henry Waterman of New
York constructed the first modern
elevator, I am told, which was op-
Grated by a lever within the frame
work of the platform. Business
firms took the idea to heart and
new industry was born. The early
worm gears gave way to wire rope
and development of the hydraulic ele-
vators followed.
Accidents were frequent in these
primitive times and the manufac-
turers struggled to find remedies. One
day an elevator laden with boxes Of
sugar fell from a great height into
cellarway-much to every ones as
tonishment, the sugar was unbroken.
This was all the hint that was need
ed; one manufacturer reasoned that,
as the cellar was almost alright, the
lift, in its rapid descent, had COM
pressed the air so as to form "cush-
ion" that made the landing happy
one. A few months later this same
man took out patent for the first
"air cushion" used in connection with
elevators.
The first passenger elevators work.
ed by steam we're installed in hotels
in New York and Philadelphia They
were later discarded as unsatisfactory
and prohibitive in cost.
But the inventors and manufac-
turers worked hand in hand to per-
feet passenger and freight elevators
until, through many trials and tribu-
lations, the smooth, swift vertical
transportation" of today was attained.
If the ghost of the French Kings
daughter ever hovers over modern
skyscrapers, she must indeed be
amazed at the long way her flying
chair" has come through the years!
Perhaps, though, when there is a
strike, she gets good laugh!