HANDLING OF RAW MATERIALS. 



SIT 



this cup -chain to the handling of fuel and raw material in a 

 chemical factory. This firm has likewise brought the electric auto- 

 matic systems with intermittent charges to such perfection that they 

 have spread enormously for some time back in Europe in metal- 

 lurgical works and chemical factories. This process of automatic 

 electric handling consists in causing an automatic car to which is 

 suspended a bin to convey the material to run over an aerial 

 railway. The current is led to this electric car by a bronze wire.. 

 Fig. 58 represents this system, which has this great advantage, that 

 any desired shape may be given in a horizontal plane to the rigid. 

 aerial railwav, so that it can go round the multiple obstructions- 

 which it meets not only in old factories but even in those still under 

 construction. An electric automotor truck such as is shown m, 

 Fig. 58 can turn in curves of two metres radius. The Americans, it 

 is true, were the promoters of a system called " Telpherage," which 

 was likewise based on the conveyance of heavy unitary loads on 



t 



w 



Fig. 54.— Section of Elevating Cups (Ad. Bleichert and Co.). 



rigid robust aerial railways suitably sustained, but the principal ob- 

 stacle to the extension of their system was that it barely attained a- 

 yield of 12 per cent, due to the want of proportion existing between 

 the weight of the rolling car and that of the useful load to be con- 

 veyed. These weights were in fact in the ratio of 5 to 1. But if 

 the first thing to be done was to reduce the weight of the car and 

 the bin which form the truck as much as possible, taking into ac- 

 count the safety of the workmen, it was necessary also to create 

 from the triple "^point of view of economy, simplicity and rapidity 

 of transport, all the other parts of a complete installation. The 

 plant and rolling stock for transport, such as the exigencies of 

 modern factories demand, should include points and automatic safety 

 apparatus, and above all the automatic traveUing of the individual 

 wagons independent of any handling as well as the greatest possible 

 speed. The system devised by Ad. Bleichert and Co., owing to th^ 

 ingenious arrangements of its rails, points, and curves, combines- 



