Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 03.djvu/576

LEFT ELEPHAN'T EAR 502 ELEVATOR from 12 to 30 feet, and in girth at the chest from 8 to 18 feet. The proboscis of the male is about 15 inches long, but elongates under excitement. The females have no proboscis, and are considerably smaller than the male. ELEPHANT'S EAR, a name some- times given to plants of the genus Be- gonia. ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES, festi- vals held annually at Eleusis, a town of Attica, in honor of the goddess Deme- This, as nearly as can be ascertained, is the first mention in history of an elevating device. About 1850 platform freight elevators were manufactured by Henry Waterman of New York City and George C. Fox & Company of Boston, Mass. One of the first instances of a prac- tical elevator installation for carrying passengers was the lift installed in the old Fifth Avenue Hotel at 5th Avenue and 23d Street, New York City. The building was six stories high and the ele- INDIAN ELEPHANT ter. The usual opinion is that they were begun by Eumolpus, the first hiero- phant, 1356 B. c. Great secrecy was ob- served in the celebration of the festivals, consisting of the greater and lesser mys- teries; and it was a capital offense to reveal any of the rites. They existed about 18 centuries, and ceased during the invasion of Alaric I., in 396. ELEUSIS (e-lu'sis), a decayed village of Attica, but in ancient times a city of Greece, 12 miles from Athens. It was celebrated as the chief seat of the wor- ship of Ceres, whose temple here was the largest sacred edifice in Greece. ELEVATOR, a moving platform or cage in a building, for carrying passen- gers or freight up and down. Vitruvius, an architect of Rome about 26 B. C, describes in his writings an ap- paratus built by Archimedes in the year 236 B. C. for lifting very heavy weights. vator consisted of a cast-iron screw ex- tending the total height of the building. The car was built around the screw, the rotation of which caused the car to move either up or down. The first elevator to be operated suc- cessfully by direct electric power, was designed and installed by the Otis Bro- thers' Company in the Demarest Build- ing, New York City, during the year 1889. The modern electric high-speed gear- less traction elevator was developed by the Otis Elevator Company, in 1904, the first installation of this type being in the New York Edison Company's Build- ing, New York. Elevators may be divided into five general classes: electric, hydraulic, steam, belt, and hand power, to which may be added the escalator or moving stairway. Electric elevators, constituting about 90