David Belasco recalls his 40 years of inventive experiment in producing the ideal stage illumination, “a true semblance of sunshine." A delightful article by the dean of American theatrical producers, containing useful suggestions for lighting the home attractively.
ATTEMPTING to select the six greatest engineering achievements of modern times is like trying to name the six greatest men of history. Any list one might make is bound to be merely a reflection of personal opinion, which is quite likely to be influenced by prejudice or individual standards of judgment.
SOME of us travel thousands of miles and spend small fortunes in search of the world’s thrills and wonders. Yet others have learned to find never-ending adventures right at their own doorstep or in near-by fields and woods, where they are forever discovering new marvels of nature in things that most of us pass by as commonplace.
The Dramatic Achievement of a Great Inventor Who Wouldn't Stay Discouraged
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Norman C. McLoud
IN A laboratory in Washington, D. C., a few weeks ago, I had the extraordinary and positively uncanny experience of talking face to face with a man who was actually in a room at another end of the building. His voice came to me over the radiophone, but for a few seconds I saw him in life size and full detail on the white wall in front of me.
EVERY year homes of the United States consume four thousand billion gallons of water. When you consider that practically every source is subject to pollution, the task of purification becomes vital. The pictures on this page are typical of improved methods used in purifying the water you drink.
Laboratory Tests to Guide You in Selecting Radio and Tools
Announcing The Popular Science Institute of Standards
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WITH this issue POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY inaugurates an extraordinary and, at the same time, the most useful service ever offered to the readers of a scientific magazine. Under the direction of eminent engineers it has established THE POPULAR SCIENCE INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS, a trustworthy and effective organization for the guidance and protection of readers in the purchase of tools, radio equipment, and other articles of a technical or semi-technical nature.
Novel “Taxi Grocery” Combines Unusual Service with Economy
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Lynn B. Dudley
SELLING foodstuffs from door to door—carrying the store to the customer—is not a particularly new idea in itself. The wagon of the food peddler is a feature of life in the towns and cities of this country that antedates the memories of the oldest of us.
SOME time in the spring of 1925 there will be opened at Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, an astronomical observatory that will house the third largest telescope in the world. In itself that is a remarkable fact, for Ohio Wesleyan is a relatively small college, having less than 2000 students.
The Top of the Air—Spring Fever—Radio—Automobiles—Health
Science and “Spring Fever”
New Gasoline Substitutes
Nitrogen Tube for Radio
A Cure for Pyorrhea
Paint as a Disinfectant
10,570 Miles by Radio
A Car that Runs Sideways
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MAN devotes a lot of attention to the air these days. Now that radio concerts are drifting through the air for 24 hours a day and modern Magellans are using the air to circumnavigate the globe in flying machines, the air has achieved an importance never accorded to it in the days when it was employed almost exclusively for breathing purposes.
SOARING out over the long stretches of the Pacific, skimming over the endless deserts of Persia, or the jungles of India, or coming down with motor trouble among the floes of summer ice off the coast of Greenland, the United States Army aviators who are flying around the world in four specially designed planes have at least one substantial source of comfort for any emergency— that is a fully equipped toolkit.
The Modern Philosopher’s Stone and Its Wonder Secrets
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Raymond J. Brown
THERE was a break in the radium market not long ago. The price suddenly plunged from $3,300,000 an ounce to $2,500,000, due to the discovery in Katanga in the Belgian Kongo of extraordinary deposits of a radium-bearing ore, from 25 to 30 times richer than the earth ever before yielded.
TIRED of paying apartment rent and determined to own a home of their own, Jim and Marion Hunter sought the advice of an old friend, an expert on home buying. The story of their search for a ready-built house, of how they found their hearts’ desire, only to discover that the price was beyond their means, and how they finally decided to buy an inexpensive Dutch Colonial house to live in until Jim’s expected increase in salary should materialize— all this was told in the two preceding chapters.
WHEN Lupino Lane, famous English comedian (at the left), took his friend Paul Whiteman, American orchestra leader (at the right), for a spin through London in the former’s baby-motor car not long ago, the car ran out of gas and stalled. Result:
EVERY one has noticed that wooaen doors and drawers stick in wet weather. This property of wood of absorbing water and swelling in the process has been utilized by the U. S. Forest Service in measuring soil moisture. Blocks of cypress wood are carefully air-dried, then measured.
TO KEEP shoes always neatly lined in their place, instead of helter-skelter on the floor, or cluttered in shoe-bags, boxes, drawers, or other makeshifts, a neat and simple shoe rack has been designed to screw on the back of a closet door. The rack is of metal and consists of two bars, one above the other.
AN ANALYSIS of the gases dissolved in underground water may give a clue whether the soil through which it has seeped contains oil. If it traverses sand containing oil or natural gas, it will dissolve a proportion of the hydrocarbons of which the oil or gas is composed.
THE sleeping child is kept covered at night by this new blanket fastener with teeth that engage the upper edges of the covers. It is attached to the bedposts by an elastic band.
A WHOLE row of business buildings in Pittsfield, Mass., now is heated by the exhaust steam from a 750-kilowatt turbo-generator used by a local power company. The steam is conducted to the generator through what is believed to be the longest high-pressure steam line in the world.
IN COLOMBIA, Peru, Ecuador, and Brazil, ivory grows on trees. Chessmen, ornaments, buttons, drawer-knobs, and other articles are made from this vegetable ivory which, when dried and cut, looks like the real ivory obtained from elephant tusks.
BALTIMORE power company has found a way to prevent sleet troubles along its lines. The company’s operators keep close tab on the weather. When the ice begins to form, enough current is applied to the circuit to melt the sleet. Success depends upon getting started before the sleet gains headway.
SULPHUR formerly was used in matches—the eight-day kind. People got tired waiting for these to burn, so the matchmakers began to leave out the sulphur. Nowadays they use it for vulcanizing rubber and making gunpowder and sulphuric acid.
A COMBINED truck, tractor, and mobile crane, so compact that it can enter and turn around in a freight car, has been invented to meet the needs of transportation in such places as shipping yards, warehouses, and large factories. The machine runs on three wheels.
SEVERAL handfuls of shaving lather of unusually delicate texture are worked up within 30 seconds from the time a man picks up this new sanitary “lather gun.” Because it obviates cup and brush, with their danger of infection, its makers claim that it is particularly valuable for barbers.
TO LEARN why some workmen accomplish more than their fellows with less effort, motion-picture films of men at work are analyzed on the ingenious drafting table shown below. The films are not projected, but studied directly on the roll.
DRIVING an automobile with an airplane propeller at a top speed of 90 miles an hour, Harry and Martin Sensen-Lititz, Pa., claim to have developed an efficient motor - car that eliminates differential gears, transmission, and jerk in starting.
PEOPLE who inhabit the earth 5000 years from now are going to have a chance to look back through the centuries and see just how we ran our industries and manufactured our products in the year 1924. And they won’t have to decipher inscriptions, nor make conjectures to learn how far their civilization has progressed.
COMPACT and comfortable, this combinatiom duck blind and life raft, invented by Dr. Charles Hunt, of Washington, D. C., enables a hunter to make easy use of the most favorable locations, requiring only a tow there and a tow back. It cannot sink or capsize, its designer claims.
BUBBLING out of the ocean from a depth of 125 feet, a big spring of fresh sulphur water, two miles off the coast of Florida, near St. Augustine, recently was surveyed by experts of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. The government scientists anchored directly over the troubled waters of the sea spring.
A PEELED spruce limb, attached to the door of an office in the U. S. Forest Service’s Forest Products Laboratory at Madison, Wis., indicates humidity changes with very nearly the accuracy of a scientific instrument. During the months when artificial heat is used, it bends far to the left.
World’s Greatest Powder Blast Tears Away a Hillside
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MOre than 150 tons of especially powerful blasting powder, said to be the largest charge ever set off for commercial purposes, recently tore away a hill 275 feet high with a 1000-foot face, near Lakeside, Utah. More than a half million tons of rock shot upward with a mighty roar and scattered over 40,000 square yards of ground.
Odd “Crawlers” Invented to Double a Tractor’s Pulling Power
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A FORDSON tractor is said to deliver twice its usual power at the drawbar when the wheels are shod with a pair of newly invented continuous-tread crawlers. This increased power results, it is claimed, from a change in gear ratio and the elimination of the old waster, traction slippage.
EVERY day your actions are affected by your knowledge of scientific facts. You avoid drafts because you know they cause colds. You avoid live wires because you know they are dangerous. But once you knew neither of these facts. Similarly, you still have hundreds of vital facts to learn, facts that will help you guard yourself, enable you to recognize opportunities, and save you wasted effort.
ALL about us, everywhere, are countless numbers of hidden mirrors; some are invisible to the unaided eye; others are larger than our earth, and still others are so small as to be ordinarily invisible through high-power microscopes. All these mirrors become visible by reflected light.
A PERAMBULATING radio receiving set entertained the visitors at a recent fair in Leipzig, Germany. The complete set, including an aerial and a loudspeaker, was carried about attached to the shoulders and chest of a man. The loop aerial and loudspeaker were mounted on a frame slung from shoulder straps like a knapsack, while the receiving instrument was hung from straps about the operator’s neck.
YOUR telephone instrument can be transformed into a mechanical secretary, it is claimed, by a new instrument designed to record calls arriving in your absence, or to transmit automatically a message dictated for some one you expect to call while you are away.
A Fascinating Game which You Can Play in Your Own Back Yard
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Ernest Bade, Ph.D.
AS WITH most other activities, so with gardening—a good beginning is most important. In the March issue of POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY I told how to plan and plant your garden. Yet, so far as your garden is concerned, well begun is not half done.
INCREASED power of radio broadcasting stations, the perfection of more sensitive receiving sets and the reduction of interference between stations are combining this summer to make radio more popular than ever as an outdoor sport for vacationists everywhere.
How to Get the Most Vacation Pleasure from Your Receiver
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Jack Binns
CAN I take my radio set with me on my vacation, or on my auto-camping trip? This question is in the minds of many radio fans now that the annual outing season is upon us. The difficulty in deciding it lies in the widespread belief that a specially designed type of super-sensitive receiver must be used for this purpose, particularly on an auto-mobile.
Motor Campers by the Million Enjoy Comforts along the Road
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Leslie V. Spencer
"WHEN going motor-camping,” said an automobile writer in an article published 15 years ago, “take along plenty of extra tubes. It is not necessary, however, to load the car down with more than two extra casings, because one is never more than two or three days from a town where the ordinary sizes of tires can be obtained.”
IF ON your motor-camping trip, you plan to strike away from the beaten highways into out-of-the-way places, as most campers do, the chances are that sooner or later your car is going to be stuck in a mud hole on some lonely country road. Will you be prepared for such an emergency?
Five simple operations, requiring about 30 seconds, convert this unusual campers’ sedan into a cozy, insect-proof house with adequate bedroom, kitchen, locker space and toilet conveniences. Four adjustable chairs that seat the travelers in the daytime are transformed at night into two comfortable double beds.
PROPELLER shafts are difficult to remove and replace when reassembling the car after a rear-end repair job. Most repair men do this work by hand, although it is a back-and arm-breaking proposition. A common screw-jack with ratchet handle can be made to assist greatly not only in this, but in other repairs.
IF YOU are going auto-camping this summer and wish to have genuine comfort and convenience without undue cost, I can recommend the equipment shown in the accompanying illustrations. Designed and built at home after a year’s study of various types of camping cars, the outfit gave most satisfactory service in a summer spent outdoors last year and will be used again this year.
AMATEUR carpenters usually make hard work out of the building of garage doors; and not a few good carpenters pursue methods that are slower and more difficult than that herein described. In all types of doors consisting of stiles and rails sheathed up the back, run the top and bottom rails the full width of the doors, and cut the stiles between (Fig. 3).
TO amuse Junior, the little rocker illustrated has many merits. The unusual design of the rocker piece prevents him from rocking too far forward or back. The back rest supports his back and keeps him from sliding off. The rabbit's ears afford a convenient hand-hold, and if the baby does manage to fall off, the seat is so close to the floor that no harm will result.
PERHAPS no toy delights children more than a miniature automobile that will run like a real car. To build such a toy is within the ability of any skilful mechanic, although it would be difficult to equal the remarkable completeness and finished workmanship of the unique little roadster illustrated.
THREE unusually popular spring projects for the home worker are the pergola garage, the baby’s crib and play pen, and the canoe sailing outfit illustrated. Selected from POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY’S long list of blueprints in response to the requests of readers, these designs are especially appropriate for construction at this time of the year.
FOR one reason or another a buffet has been ommitted fro the furniture of many dining-rooms, especially when there is a built-in china closet in the room. This gap in the furnishings may be closed readily and inexpensively by building a buffet in the home workshop.
WILL you remove the carbon from the engine for me this morning?” asked an owner friend the other day. “You know,” he continued, “that is about all I ever have done to the car. I used to have the valves ground every two or three thousand miles before I learned how to set up the tappets.
OF ALL the machines in the machine-shop, the engine lathe stands preeminent. It is the most useful and universal machine, and the ancestor of all the machinery in the world today. In the hands of an expert its range and possibilities are almost infinite.
PERHAPS no machine-shop foreman is better known to mechanics the country over than Old Bill. He is a kindly, keen-witted machinist, ever lending a helpful hand to other workmen. He was a friend of the late Joe V. Romig, who drafted him as a sort of Action character for a long series of articles planned for the Better Shop Methods Department of POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
Laying Out Angles with an Ordinary Combination Square
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WHEN your toolkit lacks a high-priced bevel protractor, your trusty old combination square will serve accurately enough for ordinary work. Suppose you need an angle of 35 degrees and the distance from the edge of the blade to the end of the combination head is 2½ in.
BY ADDING four homemade angles to his set of drawing instruments, a draftsman can obtain any angle from 1 to 90 more quickly and conveniently than with the protractor usually used. The extra angles are two of 2 degrees, one of 5 degrees and one of 10 degrees.
A FLAT file often will provide the material for making a reamer that is needed immediately to suit a special job. The teeth on the fore end of the file are ground off for a sufficient distance and both sides are made flat and true. Then the taper or shape is ground as desired.
A HANDY measuring rod may be made from a discarded broom handle, or any round, hardwood stock, and two wood screws. The point is turned on each screw by holding in a spring chuck; the flats are milled. The points are then case-hardened. The points may have a total movement of about 1 in.
This is the last mechanical design of importance made by Joe V. Romig for POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. It was completed shortly before his death and forwarded to the Editor through the courtesy of Mrs. Romig. WHEN a small bench lathe is used for light manufacturing, a turret almost invariably necessary.
IT IS often desirable that a screen door should be locked against small children and yet provide free entrance and exit for older folk. The latch illustrated does this. The main member is formed of a thin and fairly wide metal strip, bent as shown to suit the thickness of the screen-door frame.
Swinging Tray and Pocket Add to Armchair’s Utility
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ROLAND B. CUTLER
SOMETIMES we must hunch into that old armchair and concentrate on some problem with the aid of books, paper, pencils, ink, drawing tools—inspired by peppermints or a dried-up plug. Such a chair should have a wide arm, with a ditty-box hinged underneath, as illustrated.
IF YOU have made or are making any article with the aid of POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY'S blueprints, don’t fail to make aphotograph of your handiwork. Then send us a print. We are always glad to see such photographs, and for each one considered worthy of publication we shall pay $2.
Two Mirrors Provide Original Design for Craft Work
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HOME workers who are really good craftsmen often are puzzled when it comes to making a design for ornamenting some piece of wood or metal work. They do not like to copy a stock design and yet good original ideas are hard to develop. Individual and interesting stencils, inlays, marquetry, and stained or painted decorations and ornamental ironwork rarely are seen in amateur craft work.
Mounting Allows Spider-Web Coils to Be Changed Quickly
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THIS spider-web coil mounting was constructed for an experimental receiving set in which it was desired to change coils with the least possible trouble. Two mounts are used, one stationary and the other movable, and the coils can be snapped in and out instantly, all contacts being made automatically.
Mr. Fischler checked up on his eyes and was satisfied
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Most Edgeworth is sold by word of mouth —one happy smoker will pass the good word along to some less fortunate brother, and a new Edgeworth “fan” is born. Sometimes, however, the human voice plays no part in the spread of Edgeworth popularity.