232 CONSTRUCTION OF MACHINES. [Chap. 11.

the shaft; and then they will drive the meal the rightway, the flights operating like ploughs.

To make the flights, take good maple, or other smooth,hard wood; saw it into 6 inch lengths, split it always fromthe sap to the heart; make pieces 2£ inches wide, and iof an inch thick; plane them smooth on one side, andmake a pattern to describe them by, and make a te-non 2£ inches long, to suit a £ inch auger. When theyare perfectly dry, having the shaft bored, and the in-clination of the flights marked by a scribe, drive themin and cut them off 2^ inches from the shaft; dress themwith their foremost edge sharp, taking all off from theback side, leaving the face smooth and straight, to pushforward the meal; make their ends nearly circular. Ifthe conveyer be short, put in lifting flights, with theirbroad side foremost, half the number of the others, be-tween the spires of them; they cool the meal by liftingand letting it fall over the shaft.

To make the trough for it to run in, take 3 boards, thebottom one 11, back 15, and front 13 inches. Fix theblock for the gudgeon to run in at one end, and fill thecorners with cleets, to make the bottom nearly circular,that but little meal may lie in it; join it neatly to thepulley-case, resting the bottom on the bottom of the holecut for the meal to enter, and the other end on a sup-porter, that it can be removed and put to its place againwith ease, without stopping the elevator.

A meal elevator and conveyer thus made, of good ma-terials, will last 50 years, with very little repair, andsave an immense quantity of meal from waste. The topof the trough must be left open, to let the steam of themeal out; and a door, about 4 feet long, may be made inthe ascending case of the elevator, to buckle the strap,&c. The strap of the elevator turns the conveyer, sothat it can be easily stopped if any thing should be caughtin it; it is dangerous to turn it by cogs. This machineis often applied to cool the meal, without the hopper-boy, and to attend the bolting-hopper, by extending itto a great length, and conveying the meal immediately