62 ESSAYS ON WHEAT 



base of the working house. The wheat is let out of a bin 

 through a hole in its base. The capacity of an elevator 

 depends on the size and number of its cylindrical storage 

 bins. The bins are cylindrical because engineers have 

 found that cylindrical bins resist the pressure of the grain 

 within them better, and require less concrete in their 

 frame, than bins of any other form. In order to compre- 

 hend more fully the working of a terminal elevator, let us 

 follow a car-load of wheat into the building, observe what 

 is done with it, and watch it being shipped away. 



A car of wheat which has been inspected at Winnipeg 

 is brought to the elevator. The seals on its two outer 

 side doors are broken, the grain doors, if nailed up, are 

 smashed with an ax, and a large part of the grain then 

 pours out of the car. A man then enters the car and, by 

 means of a wooden scoop pulled by chains from the work- 

 ing house, quickly evacuates all the wheat which has re- 

 mained. The emptying of a car occupies about ten min- 

 utes. The wheat falls down on each side of the car 

 through a grating into an opening in the ground known 

 as a receiving pit. From the pit the wheat is conveyed 

 on a revolving belt or conveyor which is lower along the 

 center than at the sides, to the base of the working house 

 where it is elevated to the top of the house by means of 

 buckets attached to an endless rubber belt. On arriving 

 at the top of the house, the wheat is weighed in a scale, 

 the whole car-load at one time. It is then stored tem- 

 porarily in one of the many small bins available in the 

 working house, cleaned if necessary, and treated in any 

 way desired. It is then transferred from floor to floor 

 by spouts until it reaches the top of the storage bins. 

 Here it is carried along on the top of another revolving 

 belt which runs in the passageway over the top of the 

 storage bins ; and it is diverted into whichever of the bins 



