This is a patented invention by a man that lived in my village (Bayville, NY). His name was Nicholas W. Godfrey. He was born in Cape May County, NJ in the late 1830's and died in 1899. He was a 1st Lieutenant in the 25th Division (Company F). He fought in the Civil War. Sometime after the War he moved to Long Island. He ended up owning more than half of my town. He had a huge potato farm in Bayville and was also involved with sand and gravel mining as well as farming salt hay. He mined for sand in Bayville, Lattingtown & Lloyd Harbor. 2 of those 3 sand pits are still there. The 3rd one is across the street from where I currently live and is now a beach parking lot. Some of the sand that Mr. Godfrey mined, ended up at the Brookfield factory in Brooklyn. Here is the second of 2 pictures of his invention to mine sand instead of hand digging for it. This is a view from the side, showing the inner workings and mechanisms of his invention. Somewhere in that shack, there was a steam engine. This invention is from 1883.