144 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
on one occasion the mayor of our city, in discussing a job of plumbing, said that 
it seemed to him " that even a plumber ought to know something about plumb- 
ing." Now it would seem that even elevator agents ought to know something 
■about elevators, but from the following incident, which is but one of many, I am 
led to believe that they are not infallible, to say the least. Only a short time 
since one of these very reliable(?) agents reported at our office that he had just 
-attached a new indicator to the elevator of a leading hotel. He was asked : 
" What does it register ?" and promptly replied, " Cubic feet." In this case our 
inspector had already made an examination, and had correctly reported as fol- 
lows : " Hale elevator ; indicator started at zero February 28th; internal cylin- 
der twelve inches : Travel of piston for complete trip, thirty and a quarter feet ; 
indicator registers for complete trip, 4. 
When it is understood that we had for a long time been assuming that ele- 
vator agents knew about all there was to know on the subject, a comparison of 
the statements of this agent and our inspector is somewhat startling. Now let us 
see what the difference amounted to: At the end of the month the indicator had 
registered 12,994; calling it cubic feet, this register would equal 97,195 gallons. 
According to our inspector, this same register would equal 578,233 gallons, or a 
difference of nearly half a million of gallons for a single month. Our experience 
with the agents in Kansas City has shown that they will, if allowed, put any kind 
of an indicator on the most convenient point of any sort of an elevator, without 
the slightest regard as to what it was intended to indicate ; then report it as regis- 
tering cubic or lineal feet, whichever they find the indicator marked. On the 
same principle they could as well change the fulcrum of a Fairbank's scale, and 
then claim it weighed pounds correctly, because pounds were marked upon the 
bar. We have lately prepared a blank, upon which these agents are required to 
make a detailed report upon the completion of an elevator before the water Avill 
be turned on, which it is hoped will to some extent correct this trouble. 
I have come to regard an elevator indicator with a feeling of wonder. Some 
years ago, when the "planchette" first came out, I remember that it acquired 
quite a reputation as a particularly erratic piece of mechanism, but for rea\ 
mystery and innate cussedness, on general principles, commend me to the indi- 
cator. Why, I have known an indicator, after registering a nice water bill, delib- 
erately and without provocation commence taking it all off again, by going 
backward. This crab-like maneuver the agent readily explained by saying the 
"ratchet had turned over," but even he was unable to show us how to make the 
bills after these peculiar gyrations. I also find that it is quite a favorite amusement 
for indicators to stop entirely, like a balky horse, after which no amount of per- 
suasion will bring them to a realizing sense of their duty. Even at the best, these 
indicators are very apt to get out of order, necessitating greater watchfulness in 
supplying elevators than for any other purpose for which water is furnished. 
Accidents in connection with the use of elevators are common throughout the 
country, and in Kansas City had, until within a short time, become of altogether 
too frequent occurrence. The great cause of this, I beheve to be due to the fact 
