User:Joedartmessick/Joseph dart

JOSEPH DART
Joseph Dart was a merchant from Buffalo New York who in 1842 invented the Grain Elevator.

Dart's bucket elevator raised grain from lake boats to built storage bins where it remained until being lowered for transshipment or for milling. "In 1842, Joseph Dart, a Buffalo grain merchant, built the world's first grain elevator in a slip off the Buffalo River. Dart came up with the idea of unloading grain ships by means of an endless belt of buckets, a system already used inside mills for moving about grain and flour. Dart's genius was in placing the belt inside a "marine leg" which would project out of a grain warehouse and be lowered into a ship's hold to scoop up the grain. Having been lifted to a great height, the grain could be weighed and sorted and distributed to ant number of tall grain bins within the granary by means of gravity. Dart's "elevator," which he described as substituting modern ingenuity for the "backs of Irishmen," was small but highly successful, and it paved the way for later elevator technology that could have unloaded an 1840s lake boat in less than seven minutes, a process that at the time, using bushel baskets, sacks, and block and tackle, could take seven days." - http://www.buffalohistoryworks.com/grain/scoopers/scoopers.htm

Joedartmessick (talk) 03:09, 16 December 2010 (UTC)