With regard to the elevators themselves it will be understood that the name refers origi nally to the mechanical devices employed for hoisting grain in order to store it in bulk. The mechanical device most generally employed is on the endless chain and bucket principle. This is applied for lifting the grain perpendicularly, whilst belts called conveyors are also used to convey it horizontally for the purpose of shooting it into different bins. But the term elevator, whilst originally employed to desig nate the machinery for hoisting, has come to signify also the building used for the storage and handling of grain. It is in this sense that the term is employed for the purpose of this article.
There are now in Canada six different kinds of grain elevators. There are first what are called the °country elevators.' These, as de-. fined by the Canada Grain Act, include all ele vators and warehouses which receive grain for storage before inspection and which are erected at a railway station or on railway lands. As a general rule the country elevators are owned and operated by commercial companies or by farmers' co-operative companies. When the farmer takes his grain to a country elevator he can either sell the grain to the operator, in which case it is called grain,' or he can hire a bin in the elevator to keep his grain dis tinct from all other grain, in which case it is called especial binned grain,° or he can store it with other grain of the same grade. If he stores the grain either in a special or general bin, he arranges with the railway company for a car, and the elevator loads the grain into the car to his order. When the grain is loaded he can either sell it on the spot as track grain or send it forward consigned on commission. In 1916 the total number of country elevators and warehouses was 3,014 with an aggregate storage capacity of 94,322,000 bushels.
Next in order come the large terminal ek vators, which are situated at Fort William and Port Arthur, the twin cities at the head of Lake Superior, to which the country elevators are tributary, and from which the grain is shipped by the lake steamboats to Montreal, or to the lake ports of Canada and the United States. These elevators are called "terminal not because they are situated at the railway termini, but because the inspection of western grain ends at them. Of these terminal ele vators at Fort William and Port Arthur there are 13 with a total capacity of 40,435,000 bushels.
Other descriptions of elevators include 22 "public elevators' with a capacity of 29,250,000 bushels, 19 "hospital elevators' with a capacity of 2,560,000 bushels for the cleaning or other treatment of rejected or damaged grains and three milling elevators with a capacity of 1,700,000 bushels used in connection with the manufacture of grain products in the western inspection division. Under powers conferred by
the Canada Grain Act, and partly for the pur pose of meeting a contemplated western ex pansion of trade through the opening of the Panama Canal, the Dominion government has erected and is operating four new interior ter minal elevators. These are situated at Port Arthur, Saskatoon, Moosejaw and Calgary, and have an aggregate capacity of 9,500,000 bush els. At Vancouver, also, a public or transfer elevator, with a capacity of 1,250,000 bushels, has been erected by the government to facili tate the loading of grain in ocean steamships. Altogether the Dominion government has li censed 3,078 grain elevators and warehouses with an aggregate storage capacity of 180,988, 000 bushels. In 1901 the licensed grain eleva tors in Canada numbered 523 with a total stor age capacity of 18,329,352 bushels; so that the difference between these figures and those just quoted for 1916 shows how great has been the development of the trade since the beginning of the 20th century.
Inspection and Grading.— Under the Canada Grain Act all Canadian grain shipped in car load lot: or cargoes from elevators is subject to government inspection and grading, and the grain is sold both at home and abroad on the inspection certificate entirely by grade and not by sample. As each car arrives at an inspection point it is sampled and graded by qualified samplers and inspectors appointed under the act. When the grain arrives at the terminal elevators it is weighed, cleaned and binned according to grade under the direct su pervision of the inspectors, and a warehouse receipt is issued by the elevator operator to the owner of the grain. When the grain leaves the terminal elevator in car or cargo lots it is again weighed and inspected, and it must be graded out as graded in; that is, if it was received into the terminal elevator as "No. 1," grain of equal quality must be shipped out. Thus the identity of the grade of exported grain is carefully preserved through every stage of movement. There are a number of inspection points; but for grain going west the principal inspection point is Calgary. Duluth is the in spection point for bonded grain going through the United States. Winnipeg is the inspection point for all eastward bound grain and Fort William and Pott Arthur are the points of in spection for grain Itavitqf the terminal eleva tors.