When Its Head Is
Ensconced Within Its Box, And The Beast Of Prey Is Thus Nearly
Hidden Within The Building,
The unsuspicious vessel is brought up
within reach of the creature's trunk, and down it comes, like a
musquito's proboscis,
Right through the deck, in at the open
aperture of the hole, and so into the very vitals and bowels of the
ship. When there, it goes to work upon its food with a greed and
an avidity that is disgusting to a beholder of any taste or
imagination. And now I must explain the anatomical arrangement by
which the elevator still devours and continues to devour, till the
corn within its reach has all been swallowed, masticated, and
digested. Its long trunk, as seen slanting down from out of the
building across the wharf and into the ship, is a mere wooden pipe;
but this pipe is divided within. It has two departments; and as
the grain-bearing troughs pass up the one on a pliable band, they
pass empty down the other. The system, therefore, is that of an
ordinary dredging machine only that corn and not mud is taken away,
and that the buckets or troughs are hidden from sight. Below,
within the stomach of the poor bark, three or four laborers are at
work, helping to feed the elevator. They shovel the corn up toward
its maw, so that at every swallow he should take in all that he can
hold. Thus the troughs, as they ascend, are kept full, and when
they reach the upper building they empty themselves into a shoot,
over which a porter stands guard, moderating the shoot by a door,
which the weight of his finger can open and close.
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