Elevators, which are now so largely used to raise passengers and freight from the lower to the upper stories of high edifices, have for their motive power steam, water, compressed air, and electricity. With steam a drum is rotated over which a hoisting wire-rope is wound, to which the elevator car is attached. The car for passengers may be a small but elegantly furnished room, which is carried on guide blocks, and the stationary guides are provided with ratchet teeth with which pawls on the car are adapted to engage should the hoisting rope give way. To the hoisting rope is attached a counterbalance weight to partly meet the weight of the car in order to prevent the car from sticking fast on its passage, and also to prevent a sudden dropping of the car should the rope become slack. A hand rope for the operator is provided, which at its lower end is connected with a starting lever controlling the valves of the cylinders into which steam is admitted to start the piston shaft, which in turn actuates the gear wheels, by which movement the ropes are wound around the drums. In another form of steam elevator the drums are turned in opposite directions, by right and left worms driven by a belt. In the hydraulic form of elevator, a motor worked by water is employed to lift the car, although steam power is also employed to raise the water. The car is connected to wire cables passing over large sheaves at the top of the well room to a counterbalancing bucket. This bucket fits closely in a water-tight upright tube, or stand-pipe, about two feet in diameter, extending from the basement to the upper story. Near this stand-pipe in the upper story is placed a water supply tank. A pipe discharges the water from the tank into the bucket, which moves up and down in the stand pipe. There is a valve in the tank which is opened by stepping on a treadle in the car, and this action admits to the bucket just enough weight of water to overbalance the load on the car. As soon as the bucket is heavier than the car it descends, and of course draws the car upward, thus using the minimum power required to raise each load, rather than, when steam is employed, the full power of the engine each and every time. The speed is controlled by means of brakes or clamps that firmly clasp wrought-iron slides secured to posts on each side of the well room, the operator having control of these brakes by a lever on the car. When the car has ascended as far as desired, the operator steps upon another treadle in the car connected with a valve in the bottom of the bucket and thus discharges the water into the receiving tank below until the car is heavier than the bucket, when it then of course descends. The water is thus taken from the upper tank into the bucket, discharged through the stand-pipe into the receiving tank under the floor of the basement and then pumped back again to the upper tank, so that it is used over and over again without loss.