322 



CHEMICAL MANUEES. 



countered. Automatic handling installations can in fact be seen 

 consisting of a network of the system of cup-chain elevators com- 

 bined with an electric network, or consisting of some one of these 

 with the third system, that is to say the funicular rope system. For 

 example, Fig. 59 shows a conveying installation in a superphosphate 

 factory in which very considerable differences in level had to be 

 spanned. It was a question especially of conveying the raw phos- 

 phate discharged from ships into a shed through the whole factory 

 by an overhead railway to bring it into the superphosphate factory 

 situated behind, and to lift the superphosphate there and deposit it in 

 a shed from which it is charged into railway wagons. In these 

 transfers all handling had to be avoided. The superphosphate shed 

 is connected with the factory by a cable conveyor starting from the 

 point g, and reaching about 8 metres (say 26 feet) in height, going 

 round the factory and bringing its bins into a discharging hopper in 

 which they are tip-tilted. The finished superphosphate is in its 



Fig. 60. — Section a h 

 of Fig. 59. 



Section c d. 

 of Fig. 59. 



Section e f 

 of Fig. 59. 



turn poured by means of an elevator into a hopper installed on the 

 roof, from whence it is conveyed by means of an electric automatic 

 superphosphate conveyor installed above the raw phosphate con- 

 ve^^or. The tilting of the bins in the hall of the depot, their return 

 and their stoppage at the point of loading, are carried out in an 

 absolutely automatic manner. Fig. 64: shows the system of rolling 

 and of tilting the electric superphosphate bins above their depot ; 

 the sections of the figure (Fig. 60), c d, a b, ef, show the arrange- 

 ment of the railways. There will be seen on the section c d the 

 elevator described above, which serves to pour the superphosphate 

 into the bins of the electric automatic system. This question of the 

 elevation of material leads to the description of another method 

 generally used to elevate material to levels capable of sometimes 

 reaching 10 metres (33 feet) of vertical difference in level. The 

 svstem of rope traction of cars, ordinary or electrical, on a stair to be 

 spanned such as that shown in the section g h of Fig. 59, can only 



