One of the greatest causes of waste from elevators is the wearing out of the piston packing, this being particularly troublesome in most of the Western cities, where the water supplied is to a large extent from turbid streams, carrying more or less fine sand or "grit," which cuts out the packing of the pistons very rapidly. The only practicable remedy for this is close inspection, to see that the pistons do not allow water to pass, a fact that can readily be determined from the noise made in the cylinder when the elevator is in motion going upward. I have reserved one of the most annoying features of elevator supply for the last, hoping to work myself into a mood to do the subject justice, but doubt if it can be done in language proper to use before this dignified body. I remember on one occasion the mayor of our city, in discussing a job of plumbing, said that it seemed to him "that even a plumber ought to know something about plumbing." Now it would seem that even elevator agents ought to know something about elevators, but from the following incident, which is but one of many, I am led to believe that they are not infallible to say the least. Only a short time since, one of these very reliable (?) agents reported at our office that he had just attached a new indicator to the elevator of a leading hotel. He was asked: "What does it register?" and promptly replied, "Cubic feet." In this case our inspector had already made an examination, and had correctly reported as follows: "Hale elevator; indicator started at zero February 28; internal diameter of cylinder, 12 inches; travel of piston for complete trip 30¼ feet; indicator registers for complete trip, 4." When it is understood that we had for a long time been assuming that elevator agents knew about all there was to know on the subject, a comparison of statements of this agent and our inspector is somewhat startling. Now let us see what the difference amounted to: At the end of the month the indicator had registered 12,994; calling it cubic feet, this register would equal 97,195 gallons. According to our inspector, this same register would equal 578,233 gallons, or a difference of nearly half a million of gallons for a single month. Our experience with the agents in Kansas City has shown that they will, if allowed, put any kind of an indicator on the most convenient point of any sort of an elevator, without the slightest regard as to what it was intended to indicate; then report it as registering cubic or lineal feet, whichever they find the indicator marked. On the same principle they could as well change the fulcrum of a Fairbanks scale, and then claim it weighed pounds correctly, because pounds were marked upon the bar. We have lately prepared a blank, upon which these agents are required to make a detailed report upon the completion of an elevator before the water will be turned on, which it is hoped will to some extent correct this trouble.