CHAPTEE XVIL 



TRANSFERENCE AND HANDLING OF RAW MATERIALS AND 



FINISHED PRODUCTS. 



The economic handling of raw materials, fuel, and finished products 

 is one of the most important problems which the manufacturer — • 

 desirous of coping with competition, which becomes each day more 

 bitter and better equipped — has to solve. But up to now it was ex- 

 <3eedingly difficult to find a universal system of automatic transport 

 adapting itself to the varying exigencies of different factories, and for 

 a long time it was only possible to devise special installations for 

 •each case according to the nature of the materials to be conveyed. 

 To difficulties of this nature another had to be added arising from 

 the plan of the factories themselves. The gi-eater part of them, as 

 is well known, had a very modest beginning. They have de- 

 veloped gradually and have increased their production in a measure 

 quite out of proportion with the working space at their disposal, so 

 much so that there is no room for installing conveyors. These 

 are reduced to the installing of lifts and small rails of the Decau- 

 ville type. The systems used for conveying raw materials already 

 warehoused or to be warehoused may be reduced to three : the 

 •continuous system, the funicular suspended rails, and the electric 

 suspended rails, which hardly go back fifteen years. The continuous 

 system is already known, having been in use for a long time in all 

 industries. It will suffice to point out a very neat improvement 

 which has lately been made by Ad. Bleichert and Co. In continuous 

 ■systems, whether the conveyors are bands or cups, work is confined 

 to the same plane. All cup or chain conveyors known up to now 

 other than those on the Ad. Bleichert and Go's system have the 

 drawback of working in the same plane, and consequently entail a 

 transhipment of the materials when it is desired to convey the 

 materials in different planes. This transhipment entails costly 

 plant, consumes motive power uselessly, and exhausts the material. 

 The mono-rail cup system of Ad. Bleichert and Co. suppresses 

 these drawbacks, for the cup-chain continues to pass from one plane 

 to another by aid of suitable guides. Fig. 54 shows the section of 

 the cups of this ingenious system. Figs. 55 and 56 are photographs 

 •of installations of this system at work. Fig. 57 is an application of 



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