Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/132

* GRAIL. 110 GRAIN ELEVATOR. Galahad, ^vho is thout;ht to be a son of Lancelot ; Graml Haint ilrual (about 1230), also in prose; the jirose Perceval le Oallois (about 1225) ; the Mahinogi of I'eredur (i.e. Perceval), a Welsh prose romance (in the fourteenth centuiy) ; and "Sir Perceval of Galles," an English poem (about 1440). Of the second poem, by Borron, only fragments are extant; and the third, in its orig- inal form, is lost, though its matter may be in- ferred from the prose romance known as the Diclot Perceval (second quarter of the thirteenth centui-y). Sir Thomas ilalory embodied the Quest, of which Galahad is the hero, in his llorte d'Arthur, printed by Caxton in 14S5. From this brief sununary the Grail legend is seen to be the work mostly of French poets in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. On what did they build? It is generally held that much of the matter — for exam]>!e, the hero and the magic vessel — was originally Celtic. Of this there is no reason- able doubt. And yet the precise nature of this Celtic contribution to the legend has not yet t-een determinod. The romance of the Grail, so popular in the jNIiddle Ages, was revived by the poets of the nineteenth century. Best known is Tennyson's poem in the Idylls of the King. Tennyson, following Malory, gives the Galahad version, and of course infuses into the legend modem ideas. On the other version Wagner founded the great music drama of Parsifal. Con- sult: Paris, La litterature francaise au moyen (ige (2d ed., Paris. 1890) : Hucher, Le Saint Graal (Paris, 1875-79); Bireh-Hirschfeld, ' Die Sage vom Oral (Leipzig. 1877), Hagen, Der Gral (Strassburg, 1900) ; Nutt, Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail (London, 1888) ; Rhys, Stiidies in the Artliurian Legend (London, 1891) ; Hein- zel, Vehcr die frau::osischen Gral-Romane (Vien- na, 1891) ; Newell, King Arthur and the Table Round (Boston, 1897). See Galahad and Per- ceval. GRAIN. See Caryopsis ; Fruit. GRAIN (OF. grain, grein, Fr. grain, from Lat. granum, grain, ultimately connected with Eng. corn) . A measure of weight. See Weights AND JIeASURES. GRAIN ELEVATOR. A structure for the handling, storage, or cleaning of grain during, or preparatory to, its trans-shipment from rail- way cars to vessels, and vice versa. In exterior appearance the modern grain elevator is a win- dowless rectangular structure, surmounted by a cupola-like superstructure. The main body of the building, called the 'house,' is mostly occu- pied with bins for the storage of gi'ain, while the surmounting stnicture, which is generally three stories high and is called a cupola, contains the operating machinery and working rooms. Gen- erally the topmost story of the cupola contain.? the leg-driving machineiy and tumhead spouts, the middle story the gamers, and the lowest story the weighing hoppers and cleaning ma- chinery. Below the cupola and main roof, and extending over the entire width and length of the house, is the distributing or spout floor. Here are the conveyors, for transporting lengthwise to the building, and the distributing sponts. for transferring by gravity the grain from the scale hopper to the bins. By means of legs reaching from the bottom of pits sunk below the founda- tions of the bins to the topmost story of the cupola, and continuing bucket conveyors, the grain is elevated to the turnhead points and dis- charged into the garners. From these it passes to the lower floor, where it is weighed, cleaned if desired, and linally spouted to its proper l)in. This description applies in general to all ele- vators, but the construction and arrangement of details diller for different classes of elevators. The mode of operation of a grain elevator, de- scribed without technicalities, is somewhat as follows: A string of cars is placed so that each car is opposite one of a niunljer of elevator legs located about a car-length apart. The track may enter the building underneath the bins, or may pass along one or both sides of the building. Two shovelers enter each car, and handle each a shovel operated by a rope from a power-shovel shaft in the elevator, These shovels discharge into the hopper or uits into which the feet of the elevator legs descend. From these the bucket conveyors running inside the legs hoist the grain to the top- most stoiy of the cupola, where it is discharged, in turning over a head pulley, into the hopper of the turnhead spouts, thence into the garners, and thence into the weighing hoppers. From the scale hoppers the grain is spouted : ( 1 ) Upon belt conveyors running longitudinally across the building and discharging over movable trippers into storage bins (storage elevators) ; (2) into. car spouts, for reloading or transferring (rail- way transfer elevators) ; (3) directly into stor- age bins, which may be (a) shipping bins with dock spouts, to be loaded into vessels; (b) into car spouts (terminal elevators) ; or (c) into garners above cleaning machineiy (cleaning ele- vators). All of these classes of elevators are designed for taking grain from railway cars and transferring it to vessels or to other railway cars. Iilarine elevators, for transferring grain from vessels to railway cars, are provided on the dock side with elevator legs outside of the house, which are mounted on wheels pennitting move- ment along the side of the house and allowing the legs to be set opposite the vessel's hatches. These marine legs convey the grain to the tui'n- liead spouts, whence it passes to the garners, scales, cleaning machinery, it desired, or to the car-loading spouts. There is another class of elevators, comprising small elevators at railway stations for receiving grain from farmers' wagons and transferring it to cars. Floating elevators are structures similar to land elevators, which are mounted on floats or barges, which permit the transi^ortation of the structure from one point of a harbor to another. In America, the most common construction for elevators is timber, constructed sometimes with thin brick outside protecting walls for the house, and corrugated iron covering for the roof and cupola wails. The purpose of this incombustible outside covering was to decrease the danger from fire, and for this purpose it was evidently su- perior to rmprotected timber construction. This outside protection, however, was of little prac- tical value once iire had gained access to the timlier interior, and even with its use insurance rates were very high. As a result, there has been a strong tendency among elevator men in recent years to build fireproof elevators. This con- struction has usually taken the form of steel bins inclosed by a house with brick walls, and a cupola built entirely of steel framing, covered with terra-cotta or iron, and having tile or sheet-