INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



form of governor which remains inactive at normal 

 speed; but when this speed is increased to twenty-five 

 per cent, above normal they become instantly active, 

 causing the powerful steel nippers to grip the guide 

 rails with increasing pressure until the car is stopped. 

 Obviously the action of these nippers must be rapid, 

 since a falling body moves sixteen feet during the first 

 second, and thrice that distance the next. But since 

 the car must be descending at a fairly rapid rate before 

 the safety clutches act at all, it is evident that if they 

 acted instantaneously the passengers might receive 

 a hard shock. They are arranged, therefore, so as to 

 act gradually (relatively speaking, of course), their 

 gripping force increasing evenly but steadily with every 

 inch of descent. So that while the car is stopped 

 quickly there is a graduated diminution in speed. In 

 actual practice it has been found that the passengers 

 seldom receive severe shocks when this system of safety 

 clutch is used. 



Considering the number of persons that are carried 

 every day in elevators and the amazingly small per- 

 centage of accidents, the claim that the modern ele- 

 vator is one of the most highly perfected mechanisms 

 ever devised cannot be disputed. 



The telephone plays an important part in relieving 

 the elevator service of the modern office building. 

 It is estimated that without telephone service the num- 

 ber of elevators required to handle the traffic in the 

 ordinary skyscraper would consume so much space 

 and so increase the cost of maintenance that the 

 rentals for floor space would be prohibitive. 



[174] 



