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Figure 26.—Section through the Otis power cylinder.
(Adapted from Gustave Eiffel, La Tour de Trois Cents Mètres, Paris, 1900, pl. 22.)

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Figure 27.—Details of the counterweight carriage in the Otis system.
(From Gustave Eiffel, La Tour de Trois Cents Mètres, Paris, 1900, pl. 224.)

Although highly efficient and of unquestionable security, this safety device was considered an insufficient safeguard by Eiffel, who, speaking in the name of the Commission, demanded the application of a device known as the rack and pinion safety that was used to some extent on European cog railways. The commissioners not only considered this system more reliable but felt that one of its features was a necessity: a device that permitted the car to be lowered by hand, even after failure of all the hoisting cables. The serious shortcomings of the rack and pinion were its great noisiness and the limitation it imposed on hoisting speed. Both disadvantages were due to the constant engagement of a pinion on the car with a continuous rack set between the rails. The meeting ended in an impasse, with Brown unwilling to approve the objectionable apparatus and able only to return to New York and lay the matter before his company.

While Eiffel’s attitude in the matter may appear highly unreasonable, it must be said that during a subsequent meeting between Brown and Kœchlin, the French engineer implied that a mutual antagonism had arisen between the Tower’s creator and the Commission. Thus, since his own judgment must have had little influence with the commissioners at that time, Eiffel was compelled to specify what he well knew were excessive safety provisions.