Feb. 5, 1902.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
529 
wonld otherwise be subject to the vicissitudes of irreg- 
ular minfall, and it is hoped, from this source alone, 
that 100,000 acres of rice land will be kept under 
permanent cultivation. 
The rainfall in Travancore side of the range is 
very heavy, amounting to 250 inches per annum, and 
even more in some parts ; while it in not over 30 
inches on the British side, only a few miles distant. 
An agricultural company secured a concession from 
the Travancore Government of some 100,000 acres 
of land, and has of recent years been developing the 
suitable portions for the cultivation of tf-a and coffee, 
cardamoms and chinchona ; about 20,000 acres are 
now under these varied crops. The labonre:s re- 
quired in connection with the gardens, together with 
their families, number about twenty thousand, and 
iu order to feed them some three thousand transport 
ponies, donkeys, and oattle were employed, besiddS 
a large force of probably not less than eight hundred 
coolies for carrying head loads. 
The principle base of operations, Munfiar, was thirty- 
two miles from the end of the cart road on the plains, 
which r*n from that point to a station on the South 
Indian Ra'lway ; along this road it is hoped that a 
narrow-gauge railway will be laid by a compiny which 
has secured a concession from the Government. The 
road has been extended recently by the Agrionltural 
Company ten miles of a valley to the base of the 
steep ghaut, and from the top of the range about forty 
miles of cart road have been constructed in various 
directions to serve the estates. It was to connect those 
two points that it was decided to erect an aerial ropeway 
capable of filling the company's requirements, as well 
as those of the general public, for many years to come. 
A cart road up this ghaut would have been impossible 
to make or to work except at a prohibitive cost. The 
qaestiou of cutting a cart road in a westerly direction 
was also duly considered, but the heavy cost of con- 
Btrnctioa through virgin forest in an unhealthy 
country, with a rainfall of upwards of 250 inches, 
and the fact that fit'ty miles of such road 
would have had to be made and maintained 
under difficult conditions, resulted in the abandon- 
ment of the idea. It was finally decided to join up 
the steep section between the ends of the two road- 
ways by an aerial rope line, and the type to be adopted 
received carefnl consideration. The local engineer of 
the company, Mr Kemlo, finilly designed the installa- 
tion with a view to erect an efficient ropeway with 
materials of as light a section as was compatible with 
strength, as the cost of transporting material in the 
very unhealthy ghant was excessively heavy. His 
design took the form of a moving rope carrying its 
own loads, and although the trouble in connection 
with its installation was great, the results have more 
than fulfilled expectations. This is probably the 
steepest ropeway of its class in existence, and its 
snccees is in a large measure due to the grip carriers 
which will be described presently. The total length 
of the ropeway is 2.6 miles, measured along the slope 
of the ground, and the rise is about 4,000 feet. It 
is divided into two seetions, the lower one being 
7,400 feet in horizontal length, with a rise of 2,150 feet ; 
the upper section has a horizontal length of 5.8i;0 feet, 
and a rise of 1,850 feet. In the lower sections, there 
are thirteen spans, the longest being 1,028 feet hori- 
zontal, and in the upper section there are nine spans, 
the longest 1,560 feet horizontal. The slope is fairly 
uniform throughout, except, that the lowest four 
spans are less steep than the rest of the line. 
Fig. 1, Plate XLV, is a profile of the line. The 
positions of the stundarfis are numbered consecutively 
from 1 to 18, and the information on the section is 
so complete as to render any further reference uu» 
necessary. 
The reasons for working the rope in two sections 
are (1) in the event of breakdown only half of the 
installation would be ont of work; (2) that part of 
the atrcsB at the top, which is due to the weight of 
the rope, is diminished, and thus its load-oarrying 
oapaoily i» increased ; and (.3) the cVvmate at the foo\, 
of the Ghaut is bo unhealthy that no European could 
stand it, whila by the present arcanaemeuta the rops- 
way is worked from the cential station, which, being 
at an elevation of nearly ■1,<I00 feet, is comparatively 
healthy. The rope is of good quality plough steel, 
i inch in diameter, tind about i lb weight per foot. 
It was sent out on eight drums with an intetch mge- 
able axle and wheels, and each drum was roU'id iijio 
the line of ropeway and unwound on the ax'o, the 
hanliiig being done by g inch steel ropes on hand 
winches, a tedious process. Four diums of rope were 
required for ep-ch section ; the pplices were 60 feet 
long, and have stood well. The ropa is supported on 
18 inches pulleys, with groove of 1 inch rndius, aud 
the pulleys are carried on light angle steel standards 
of various heights to suit the nature and slope of 
the ground, varying from 10 feet for the lowest to 
40 feet for the highest standard. The feet arc in moHt 
cases embedded in concrete blocks, though in some 
instances thev are bolted on the rocks that h ippened 
to be in the line of ropewiy. One rock shown in the 
engraving, Fig. 2, Plate XLVl, was 120 feet high, 
and an iron ladder was fixed to its almost vertical 
aide to enable the work to be done at all. 
The engraving, Fig 3, PUits XLVI, shows the stand- 
ards very clearly and indted gives a good idea of the 
ropeway geueratly. The other illustrations on ''his 
plate are characteristic of the work. Fig. i shows one 
of the terminal stations, and Fig 5 shows the zigzag 
c\rt road approach to the upper tevmiuus. The ten- 
sion gears are at the top and bottom stations (-iee Figa 
6 and 7, Plate XL VII). The ten?ion wheels are 8 ft 
iu diameter, carriei on a sliding arrangement 3o ft 
long. The requisite power is got by a worm wheel 
winch and three block sheaves with a half inch speci- 
ally flexible wire ; the anchors are heavy masonry and 
concrete blocks over 30 tons in weight. 
The driving arrangements are at the central .station, 
and consist of two e ectric motors, either of which 
oan be used geared on to a counter-shaft which, in its 
turn, operates, through a rope drive, a vertical shafi; 
and pinion geared on to two 8 ft spur wheels. These 
spur wheels have bolted on to them hard wood pulleys, 
by which the rones are driven. The upper and lower 
sections of the ropeway are connected by shuut rails, 
along which the loads puss one road to another, and at 
the termini loads automatically run of? the ropa on to 
shunt rails, or off the rails on to the rope, without any 
loss of time. 
The current for supplying the electric motors is 
generated about a mile further down, at a point where 
a head of 750 ft. of water is available. This operates 
two Pelton wheels ; th"^y in their turn drive two dyna- 
mos, each supplying 40 amperes at 500 volts. One of 
these is sufficient to work the ropeway at two miles an 
hour, while the other is always ready iu case of acci- 
dents. No water power was available nearer the 
central station than at this point, so that electric trans- 
mission was indispensable. 
The general form of carriers is shown in Fig 8 to 12, 
Plate XLV. It consists of a frame or haiigei", B, 
which carries the load clear of the standurd head 
pulleys. To the upper end of this frame the rope- 
gripping arrangement is attnched. It is made up of 
the frame. A, carrying two pendant jaws, E E, which 
are so arranged that when the load is run along the 
shunt rail, and the jaws come in contact with the rope, 
they automatically close on and grip it with a force 
proportional to the weight of the loud. The other 
letters on this figure refer to the following pirts : I ia 
tLe carrying pulley ; F is the suunt rail ; and O is the 
supplementary pulley running on the shunt rail and 
taking the load off the rope. 
Enlarged details of the jaw? are given in Fig 9 and 
10. Iu Fig 9 the jaws are shown closed over the rope, 
a result due to, and varying with, the amount of load 
susppnded. In Fis 10 the jaws are open and the ropa 
released, the we ght on it being removed. It will be 
noticed that the proportions of the jaws do not inter- 
fere with the free rnnuing over the pulleys. 
