Through This
Doorway The Corn Runs Into A Measure, And Is Weighed.
By measures
of forty bushels each, the tale is kept.
There stands the
apparatus, with the figures plainly marked, over against the
porter's eye; and as the sum mounts nearly up to forty bushels he
closes the door till the grains run thinly through, hardly a
handful at a time, so that the balance is exactly struck. Then the
teller standing by marks down his figure, and the record is made.
The exact porter touches the string of another door, and the forty
bushels of corn run out at the bottom of the measure, disappear
down another shoot, slanting also toward the water, and deposit
themselves in the canal boat. The transit of the bushels of corn
from the larger vessel to the smaller will have taken less than a
minute, and the cost of that transit will have been - a farthing.
But I have spoken of the rivers of wheat, and I must explain what
are those rivers. In the working of the elevator, which I have
just attempted to describe, the two vessels were supposed to be
lying at the same wharf on the same side of the building, in the
same water, the smaller vessel inside the larger one. When this is
the case the corn runs direct from the weighing measure into the
shoot that communicates with the canal boat. But there is not room
or time for confining the work to one side of the building. There
is water on both sides, and the corn or wheat is elevated on the
one side, and reshipped on the other. To effect this the corn is
carried across the breadth of the building; but, nevertheless, it
is never handled or moved in its direction on trucks or carriages
requiring the use of men's muscles for its motion. Across the
floor of the building are two gutters, or channels, and through
these, small troughs on a pliable band circulate very quickly.
They which run one way, in one channel, are laden; they which
return by the other channel are empty. The corn pours itself into
these, and they again pour it into the shoot which commands the
other water. And thus rivers of corn are running through these
buildings night and day. The secret of all the motion and
arrangement consists, of course, in the elevation. The corn is
lifted up; and when lifted up can move itself and arrange itself,
and weigh itself, and load itself.
I should have stated that all this wheat which passes through
Buffalo comes loose, in bulk. Nothing is known of sacks or bags.
To any spectator at Buffalo this becomes immediately a matter of
course; but this should be explained, as we in England are not
accustomed to see wheat traveling in this open, unguarded, and
plebeian manner. Wheat with us is aristocratic, and travels always
in its private carriage.
Over and beyond the elevators there is nothing specially worthy of
remark at Buffalo.
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