Direct Action Hydraulics

Just as oil-hydraulic power was first popularized for industrial use in the 20th century, so the water hydraulic was used to its greatest advantage for low-travel, heavy lifting. Plunger passenger elevators came into being, but it was expensive to sink the jack holes the number of feet the owner wanted to elevate his customers within the building. The speed was also limited, the control of acceleration and deceleration difficult and the ride increasingly rough as higher speeds were attempted. Yet engineers kept busy attacking the challenges of the plunger passenger. Leon Edoux, in addition to being a renown civil and hydraulic engineer, was a showman par excellence as indicated by his presentation of giant direct-action passenger hydros at the 1867 Paris Exposition. We see application no higher than four floors in Europe although plungers were sunk for greater depths in the cities of the U.S. Eastern Seaboard as hole drilling had become an American science. The scene was set, however, for the emergence of the roped hydraulic design which was to hold sway for half a century.