That looks pretty dangerous.
Giant Coffee Urn In Service
THE U. S. Coast Guard base at New London, Connecticut, has been provided with a coffee urn which is believed to be the largest ever constructed. It holds 60 gallons of water and the handle on its cover is just within reach of an average size girl. The big coffee maker is the center of attraction on cold nights for men returning from chilly excursions aboard patrol boats.
Rocket Brakes for Emergency Stops?
POWERFUL JETS CAN STOP CAR IN HALF NORMAL BRAKING DISTANCE
By Capt. G. C. MacDonald
ROCKET propellants, cased in special jet housings under the hood, may be used on future passenger cars and trucks as spectacularly efficient emergency brakes.
What is believed to be the first vehicle using jet emergency brakes has already been tested at the Allegany Ballistics Laboratory, Cumberland, Md., with the writer serving as test driver. An ordinary jeep, provided with a safety belt and a steel pyramid for protection in case of upset, was fitted with two jet thrust units mounted beside the hood at an angle of 45 deg. Segments of the wheels were painted white to permit high-speed camera analysis of wheel behavior during stopping.
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INDUSTRY’S MASKED MEN
HELMETS, gas masks, eye shields, respirators, rubber gloves, tough leather bibs. These are indispensable guardians of the eyes, lungs, and hides of many of America’s industrial war workers today. Without them, injuries would sabotage and cripple production of planes and arms for the United Nations’ fighting forces. Commonest of the devices are pictured here.
Big Russian Bomb Holds Sixty Little Ones
Whirling down from the sky, a gigantic aerial bomb employed by Russian aircraft breaks open before it strikes the ground, to release and spread a deadly cargo of small incendiary bombs over a wide area. Nicknamed “Molotov’s bread basket,” after Viacheslav M. Molotov, Russian Commissar for Foreign Affairs, the mammoth bomb is seven and a half feet long and over two feet in diameter. Vanes at its tail cause it to whirl when released from the rack of a bombing plane. This action ultimately opens the steel sides, allowing sixty small incendiary bombs within it to hurtle outward in all directions and plummet earthward to set fire to any inflammable object on the ground within a broad circle. First used in actual warfare against Finland, the bomb was employed to set fire to towns whose houses were constructed of wood.
As Above – So Below
IS MAN A SMALL UNIVERSE?
IT HAS BEEN SAID that everything in the universe has its counterpart in man. What of your solar plexus? Does it link you with the world beyond . .. the vast cosmos of which earth is but a speck? Centuries ago, man observed that something in the center of his torso responded to his emotional excitements —joy, fear, elation, fright, sudden experiences. In seeking an explanation, there followed many more amazing discoveries. What did these ancient searchers for truth uncover? Did they learn how to draw energy to their emotional centers — for performing miracles and accomplishing feats that seemed impossible to the uninitiated?
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Miniature Motor Made of Paper Clips
In a few minutes’ time, from several paper clips and some fine insulated wire, you can make a little electric motor that will illustrate the principle of the big fellows. The outer field magnets are wound with about twelve feet of wire, and the same length is used to wind the two legs of the armature or rotor, as shown in the photos and diagram below. Sealing wax holds the two ends of the rotor winding to the shaft, forming a commutator. One or two dry cells will supply sufficient current to run the miniature motor, which spins merrily as long as power is supplied to it.
Bowling with Electricity
The electric-powered Whittle Rotobowler, below, flings an 18-lb. aluminum ball down a 94-foot carpeted court at speeds up to 100 m.p.h, in the latest variation of an old sport. The court (inset), with lighted hazard pins, resembles a giant pinball game.
Cough Drop Has Liquid Center
COUGH drops that have liquid cough medicine in their centers are now on the market. In manufacturing the remedy, a teaspoonful of a cough sirup is placed within a hollow candy shell, and the open edge of the latter is sealed. The shell dissolves in the mouth of the user, releasing the cough sirup.
Firemen Never Fiddle
By Stanley Gerstin
Our modern fire-fighter is a young husky about whose exploits under fire little has been written. This story tells how he is trained; what he does.
IN 1871 a cow kicked over a lamp and started a fire that reduced Chicago to ashes, and a bucket of water started a fire that leveled Seattle 18 years later. The water was thrown over burning glue causing it to spread, and Seattle, like San Francisco a few years later, burnt to the ground. There have been other great fires throughout the history of the world but in all the records of fires little is ever written of the heroes who fought them. I am thinking of the fire-fighters whose exploits under fire rival those of the famous G-Men of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. These are heroes of the flames, smoke-eaters all, fire-fighters who know how to hem in a big city fire; they can stalk fugitive fires in walls and between floors —track them down with hose and axe and when they meet the fire demon, blast it with water. These are the 20th century minute-men of America; they are off with the crack of the gong hell-bent for the nearest fire hydrant. They are heroes of a thousand-and-one-nights, protectors of peoples and property from the ravishes of the flames.
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Are Scientists Monsters?
“Lord, what has happened to people’s thinking!” writes a Mr. R. C. C. of San Francisco, telling us how “shocked” he was to read artist-writer Frank Tinsley’s article, Atomic Duster . . . Deadliest Weapon, in the December issue. Quoting Mr. Tinsley’s statement that his atomic-powered, ramjet missile (see cut) is not pure dream dust but that such a weapon is mentioned in the latest progress report of the hush-hush Nuclear Energy for Propulsion of Aircraft project, the reader asks:
“How can a man have such a perverted mind as to call a weapon designed for wholesale cold-blooded murder progress? What right has science to create and release such forces under the guise of progress and jeopardize the life of every living thing?”
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DOLL MUFFS are one of the
latest novelties. The one shown below has a doll’s head and body, and the muff part forms the skirt. It was displayed at the recent New York exhibition given by the Toy Manufacturers of the U.S.A.
Hinged Fins Strapped to Legs Aid in Treading Water
ABOUT the strangest thing yet in the way of contraptions for walking on water recently appeared in Catalina Island, California. Consisting of a set of three flipper-like discs attached to the lower leg, the device gets its water treading power from the mechanical arrangement whereby the flippers spread out on the down stroke to catch hold of the water, and fold up out of the way as the leg comes upward. The results of the test, conducted by Albert E. Arnold, noted swimming coach, is indicated in his remark, “I’ll still use boats for a while.”
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