action of inertia of parts properly formed and attached. Any dangerous acceleration of the cage causes the inertia of these parts to produce a retardation relative to the car which throws into action a brake or a catch, and thus controls the motion within safe limits or breaks the fall. The hydraulic brake has been used in this apparatus, as have mechanical and pneumatic apparatus. This control of the speed of fall is most commonly secured by the employment of a centrifugal or other governor or regulator. The governor may be on the top of the cage and driven by a stationary rope fixed between the top and bottom of the shafts, or it may be placed at the top of the shaft and driven by a rope travelling with the car. Its action is usually to trip into service a set of spring grips or friction clutches, which, as a rule, grasp the guides of the cage and by their immense pressure and great resultant friction bring the cage to rest within a safe limit of speed, time and distance. A coefficient of friction of about 15% is assumed in their design, and this estimate is confirmed by their operation. Pressures of 10 tons or more are sometimes provided in these grips to ensure the friction required. There are many different forms of safety device of these various classes, each maker having his own. The importance of absolute safety against a fall is so great that the best builders are not satisfied with any one form or principle, but combine provisions against every known danger, and often duplicate such precautions against the most common accidents.
The “travelling staircase,” which may be classed among the passenger elevators, usually consists of a staircase so constructed that while the passenger is ascending it the whole structure is also ascending at a predetermined rate, so that the progress made is the sum of the two rates of motion. The system of “treads and risers” is carried on a long endless band of chain sustained by guides holding it in its desired line, and rendering at either end over cylinders or sprockets. The junctions between the stairway and the upper or lower floors are ingeniously arranged so as to avoid danger of injury to the passengers.
Freight elevators have the same general forms as the passenger elevators, but are often vastly larger and more powerful, and are not as a rule fitted up for such heights of lift, or constructed with such elaborate provision for safety or with any special finish. Elevators raising grain, coal, earth and similar materials, such as can be taken up by scooping into a bucket, or can be run into and out of the bucket by gravity, constitute a class by themselves, and are described in the article Conveyors.
The term “grain elevator” is often used to include buildings as well as machinery, and it is not unusual in Europe to hear a flour-mill, with its system of motor machinery, mills, elevator and storage departments, spoken of as an “American elevator” (see Granaries).
ELF (O. Eng. aelf; cf. Ger. Alp, nightmare), a diminutive
supernatural being of Teutonic mythology, usually of a more or
less mischievous and malignant character, causing diseases and
evil dreams, stealing children and substituting changelings,
and thus somewhat different from the Romanic fairy, which
usually has less sinister associations. The prehistoric arrow-heads
and other flint implements were in England early known as
“elf-bolts” or “elf-arrows,” and were looked on as the weapons
of the elves, with which they injured cattle. So too a tangle in
the hair was called an “elf-lock,” as being caused by the mischief
of the elves.
ELGAR, SIR EDWARD (1857– ), English musical composer,
son of W. H. Elgar, who was for many years organist in
the Roman Catholic church of St George at Worcester, was born
there on the 2nd of June 1857. His father’s connexion with
music at Worcester, with the Glee Club and with the Three
Choirs Festivals, supplied him with varied opportunities for a
musical education, and he learnt to play several instruments.
In 1879 he became bandmaster at the county lunatic asylum,
and held that post till 1884. He was also a member of an orchestra
at Birmingham, and in 1883 an intermezzo by him was played
there at a concert. In 1882 he became conductor of the
Worcester Amateur Instrumental Society; and in 1885 he succeeded
his father as organist at St George’s, Worcester. There he
wrote a certain amount of church music. In 1889 he moved to
London, but finding no encouragement retired to Malvern in
1891; in 1904 he went to live at Hereford, and in 1905 was made
professor of music at Birmingham University. To the public
generally he was hardly known till his oratorio The Dream of
Gerontius was performed at Birmingham in 1900, but this was at
once received as a new revelation in English music, both at home
and by Richard Strauss in Germany, and the composer was made
a Mus. Doc. at Cambridge. His experience in writing church
music for a Roman Catholic service cannot be overlooked in
regard to this and other works by Elgar, who came to be regarded
as the representative of a Catholic or neo-Catholic style of
religious music, for which an appreciative public was ready in
England at the moment, owing to the recent developments in
the more artistic and sensuous side of the religious movement.
And the same interest attached to his later oratorios, The Apostles
(1903) and The Kingdom (1906). But Elgar’s sudden rise into
popularity, confirmed by his being knighted in 1904, drew
attention to his other productions. In 1896 his Scenes from the
Saga of King Olaf was recognized by musicians as a fine work,
and in the same year his Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands
and Lux Christi were performed; and apart from other important
compositions, his song-cycle Sea-Pictures was sung at Norwich
in 1899 by Clara Butt, and his orchestral Variations on an
original theme were given at a Richter concert in the same year.
In 1901 his popular march “Pomp and Circumstance” was
played at a promenade concert, the stirring melody of his song
“Land of Hope and Glory” being effectually utilized. It is
impossible here to enumerate all Sir Edward Elgar’s works, which
have excited a good deal of criticism in musical circles without
impairing his general recognition as one of the few front-rank
English composers of his day; but his most important later
production, his first orchestral symphony, produced in 1908
with immediate success, raised his reputation as a composer to
an even higher place, as a work of marked power and beauty,
developing the symphonic form with the originality of a real
master of his art. In 1908 he resigned his professorship at
Birmingham University.
ELGIN, a city of Kane county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the N.
part of the state, 36 m. N.W. of Chicago. Pop. (1880) 8787;
(1890) 17,823; (1900) 22,433, of whom 5419 were foreign-born;
(1910 census) 25,976. Elgin is served by the Chicago & North-Western
and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railways, and by
interurban electric railways to Chicago, Aurora and Belvidere.
The city is the seat of the Northern Illinois hospital for the
insane, of the Elgin Academy (chartered 1839; opened 1856),
and of St Mary’s Academy (Roman Catholic); and has the Gail
Borden public library, with 35,000 volumes in 1908. The city
has six public parks, Lord’s Park containing 112, and Wing
Park 121 acres. The city is in a fine dairying region and is
an important market for butter. Among Elgin’s manufactures
are watches and watch-cases, butter and other dairy products,
cooperage (especially butter tubs), canned corn, shirts, foundry
and machine-shop products, pipe-organs, and caskets and casket
trimmings; in 1905 Elgin’s total factory product was valued at
$9,349,274. The Elgin National Watch factory, and the Borden
milk-condensing works, are famous throughout the United States
and beyond. The publishing office of the Dunkers, or German
Brethren, is at Elgin; and several popular weeklies with large
circulations are published here. A permanent settlement was
made as early as 1835, and Elgin was chartered as a city in 1854
and was rechartered in 1880.
ELGIN, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and county
town of Elginshire, Scotland, situated on the Lossie, 5 m. S.
of Lossiemouth its port, on the Moray Firth, and 7114 m. N.W.
of Aberdeen, with stations on the Great North of Scotland and
Highland railways. Pop. (1901) 8460. It is a place of very considerable
antiquity, was created a royal burgh by Alexander I.,
and received its charter from Alexander II. in 1234. Edward I.
stayed at the castle in 1296 and 1303, and it was to blot out
the memory of his visit that the building was destroyed immediately
after national independence had been reasserted.
