The windlass was the earliest device by which early man wound rope upon a drum; in the Gallery, "Birth of Systematic Agriculture," a tree trunk was used as a drum. The drums were gradually refined and many came to be driven by reciprocating pistons of steam and gas engines. It was natural that elevator manufacturers and engineers saw the drum as the answer to the need for a direct-connected electricity-driven hoisting machine. It was also natural that several other systems were developed that used electricity but not the drum. As the roped hydraulic had been a popular choice for high-rise buildings for a number years, a number of manufacturers and owners were prone to remain with a system that had afforded the safety of multiple host cables. The advent of the drum direct-connected machine was hotly contested by the Pratt-Sprague system, but with the failure of the latter's core component -- the drive nut -- the drum emerged a winner. It was to remain popular for low-rise heavy-duty lifting, but as elevators were called upon to serve ever-higher buildings, the baton was passed on to the direct traction machine.