A HAZARDOUS EXPERIMENT.

Evening Post, Volume XXI, Issue 88, 16 April 1881, Page 3

A HAZARDOUS EXPERIMENT.

4 A singular though very American experiment (says the Pall Mall Gazette) has just been tried at Philadelphia reminding us somewhat of Jules Verne's famous expedient of firing his exploring party to the moon by means of a monster projecti'e. So many accidents have happened through the faulty construction of elevators from the breakage of ropes and other mischances, that an inventor named Ellithorpe has introduced a safety air cushion to break the fall should an accident occur, ths cushion consisting of the elevator shaft being maclo airtight for a spaoe of 20 feet from the bottom. To test the invention, it -was arranged that the elevator of a certain - dry goods store should be made to fall from the fourth to the first floor, a height of about 75 feet. So satisfied was Mr. Ellithorpe, or rather his son, that the cushion would do its work properly that he consented to be shut up in the cage during the fall, and in this experiment the inevitable reporter was bold enough to share. A box half-filled with nails waß placed upon the floor of the chamber and four eggs laid npon the nails, while several tumblers of water, brimful, were also carefully deposited. The two men then entered the chamber, the door of which was then close!, completing the air-tightness at the bottom of the shaft, and it was then drawn up to the fourth floor. At a given signal the xope was ont, and the whole tiling fell to tho bottom like a flash of lightning ; but before the lookers-on could make up their minds to seek for what they dreaded, the door was opened, and the occupants stepped briskly ont, having never felt the shook in the least. The eggs wore not cracked, neither was a drop of water spilt. So successful waa the experiment that wo may expeot this new kind of " toboggening" to btoome the latest form of sensational amusement. (For further news see page 4.