wireway (wirwa)

A system of transportation by the agency of traveling or stationary wires. Wireways are used for carrying stone, ores, clay, coal, etc., from mines to docks or railroad stations, or from docks to coal-yards, or from sewage construction-works to docks or dumping-grounds, etc. The most common form is an endle traveling wire rope, supported on posts placed at intervals along the way, or, in some instances, supported only at each end, as in the cro ing of rivers or ravines, or the descent of mountain-sides. Smaller ways employ fixed wires on which travel light baskets for conveying money and packages in shops. In the traveling-wire systems the freight is placed in buckets or skips hung on the wire and traveling along with it. Arrangements are made for aut matic loading, starting, stopping, unloading, and switching to branch wires. Some of the traveling-wire lines used in mines are several miles long. In short lines, as in cash-carrier systems, the traveling basket, ball, or car is sometimes moved by raising one end of the wire, when the car rolls down to the cashier's desk. See cash - carrier and telpherage. Also called wire - road, wire- tramway. wire-weed (wir-wed), n. The knot-gra Polygo num aviculare. Britten and Holland. [Prov. Eng.] wirework (wir'wèrk), n. [= Icel. vira - virki, wirework, filigree-work; as wirel + work, n.] Fabrics made of wire, such as wire gauze and wire cloth, or objects made of wire, such as bird-cages and sponge-racks. wirework Penned off with netted wirework , in the clear, bright Rhone flood, are places for the swans and ducks. Richardson, A Girdle Round the Earth, xxv. wire-worker (wirʼwer" kėr), n. 1. One who manufactures articles from wire.-2. Same as wire- puller . 6947 "No, wis ," quod he, "myn owen nece dere." Chaucer, Troilus, ii. 474. Knowell. Why, I hope you will not a-hawking now, will you? Stephen. No, wu e; but I'll practise against next year, uncle. B. Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, i. 1. -2. Same as wire - pulling.