Ko. 151.] 173 



In addition to the ordinary hoisting machinery of the day, it con- 

 tains an elevating machinery peculiar to itself; that is, an endless 

 belt of leather passes over a dium or pully in the loft, to which is 

 affixed a succession of lifting buckets throughout the circuit of the 

 belt, in such a manner, as that the buckets on the ascending portion 

 are capable of filling with grain, while on the descending portion of 

 the belt, they are reversed, and consequently discharge their con- 

 tents. Of course this discharge takes place at the summit of the 

 circuit and thus the grain is elevated to the loft required. 



The lower circuit of the belt is made to embrace a short drum, 

 attached to a sweep, the upper end being hinged or jointed to a 

 beam of one of the stories above, and by which the same is directed 

 to any heap of grain in a lower story, or swung out of a door, and 

 directed into the grain apartment of a vessel or boat laying along 

 side the mill, and elevated to the loft desired. 



The grain having been hoisted in this manner to the cleaning loft, 

 usually the one the next above the grinding loft, is there submitted 

 to a process of beating, scouring and fanning; after which it descends 

 by a canvass conductor by its own gravity to the hopper of the 

 stones, for its principal operation of grinding; from thence it con- 

 tinues to fall in the same way to the bolting loft next below, to un- 

 dergo the separating of the flour from th§ bran; from this story it is 

 again elevated to the highest loft in the building, the one the most 

 remote and as secure from the dust of the other operations as possi- 

 ble, to be submitted to the cooling process; where it is dicharged at 

 the outward rim of a circular platform, some forty or fifty feet in 

 diameter, and where, by the sweep of revolving brushes, whose ten- 

 dency is to concentrate the flour towards the eye of the cooler, at 

 the centre of the platform, being at the same time carried around in 

 the direction of the sweep, is spread over a vast surface, every par- 

 ticle of which having to travel many thousand feet in its circuitous 

 convolutions, to the centre and -eye of the cooler; from which it 

 again descends through a conductor, passing several lofts, to the 

 packing room upon the lower floor, entirely relieved of its heat, pre- 

 viously absorbed from the friction of the stones in grinding, and is 

 there weighed and packed into barrels, by the aid of a suitable press 

 for that purpose; the top head of the barrel coopered in, when after 

 being marked and branded, it is fit for transportation and sale. 



" These establishments are usually built five or six stories high, one 

 or two of which are used for storage, located between the cleaning 

 and coolino; lofts. 



