Camera Fan Lays Trap for Thief

Set a camera to catch a thief. That is the revised version of the old proverb which Joseph Marques, of Plymouth, Mass., used to trap a “phantom burglar” who had eluded police in fifteen robberies. An amateur photographer employed by a local theater, Marques rigged up a homemade camera trap and placed it in the office of the theater. As soon as the burglar forced a window and vaulted into the room, the mechanical sleuth went into action. In quick succession, a buzzer sounded, causing the thief to look in the direc^ tion of the camera; a magnet flipped open the shutter; and a relay set off photoflash bulbs. A bell frightened the intruder away before he could locate the camera. So clear was the resulting photograph that, within a few hours, the police announced the capture of the burglar.

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How Music Heals the Sick

PHYSICIANS, SURGEONS, AND MENTAL SPECIALISTS FIND THAT MELODY HAS WEIRD EFFECTS ON PHYSICAL HEALTH

By E. W. Murtfeldt

BEETHOVEN’S Moonlight Sonata—three times a day. That is how doctors’ prescriptions may read in the near future, according to reports from the world’s leading medical centers. For in laboratories, hospitals, prisons, and mental clinics, research experts are uncovering strange facts that throw new light on the weird effects of music on our physical and mental health.

Just recently, for instance, Prof. S. V.Kravkov, a Russian scientist, discovered that music and similar sounds can even improve a listener’s eyesight as much as twenty-five percent. As little as the rhythmic ticking of a clock, experiments showed, served to stimulate the vision. A practical application of the discovery, the Soviet professor points out, is expected to serve as an aid to astronomers, microscopists, engravers, and others whose work depends on the strength and accuracy of the eyes. Even more astonishing, however, are tests being carried on in this country. Not long ago, Moissaye Boguslawski, famous pianist, conducted a series of novel experiments in a Chicago hospital for the insane. Seated before an Italian mother so mentally deranged that she refused to look at her young baby and demanded that she be treated like an animal, Boguslawski played a group of Italian melodies ranging from nursery tunes to folk songs. The woman showed no reaction until he began an aria from the opera “II Trovatore.” Before he had finished, the patient began to weep and begged attendants to bring her baby to her.
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Chemistry Spins a Yarn

By Kenneth M. Swezey

TRANSFORMATION of tree fibers or cotton linters into rayon fabrics is one of the greatest achievements of modern industrial chemistry. Chemically, rayon is almost pure cellulose, the same as cotton and linen. But instead of using cellulose as found in nature, the rayon chemist starts with cheap and plentiful spruce and hemlock trees, or the fuzz that clings to cotton seed after it has been ginned. He chops these up, dissolves them, and then causes the cellulose to reappear in silky filaments that may be spun, twisted, knit, or woven into forms that compete successfully with cotton, silk, linen, or wool.
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They Travel To Keep Motorists Posted

LIVING like gypsies in their own trucks, signpost crews of the Automobile Club of Southern California have erected 500,000 signs of 125 types in their area. They cover 200,000 miles a year, posting 50,000 signs annually to keep abreast of changing road conditions. Often the crews are gone from headquarters ten days at a time, sleeping in beds which swing down from the roofs of their trucks and cooking on gas stoves which slide out onto the back platform.

Locomotive Tries Milk Fuel

DEMONSTRATING its energy value, two tons of dried milk in the form of briquets was used in place of coal to fuel the locomotive of the Dixie Limited at the start of its run from Chicago Depot to Florida. The substitute fuel is said to have burned readily, providing as much heat as coal.

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Tricks of the Composite Photograph

by Paul Hadley

THE making of composite, or combination photos, is one of the simplest branches of trick photography, yet is one which the amateur photographer seldom attempts. Easier by far than the double exposure or distorted perspective pictures, the results are more unusual and bizarre, in that parts of any two or more photos may be combined to make a freakish result. Professionals often resort to this method in making “photomontages,” which are often seen in publications. Probably most of you have seen the novelty photo cards in which, for instance, a wagon is seen creaking under the weight of two giant apples which it is carrying to market, or perhaps an ear of corn being loaded on a flat car with a derrick. Many other variations of this type of picture are to be found, all of which were made by the simple method of combining parts of several prints to make a whole.
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This guy really should be inducted into the Maker hall of fame. If that doesn’t exist, they should create one. Just for him.

Makes Own False Teeth of Stainless Steel

From stainless steel, a Wilmington, Calif., carpenter has made himself a complete set of unbreakable artificial teeth. Buying a block of the alloy, he shaped each tooth individually with the aid of a hack saw and file. Then he vulcanized them into a homemade mounting of rubber, obtaining the material from a dental-supply house and making his own mouth impressions with paraffin. For molding purposes he employed plaster of Paris in electric outlet boxes.

Glasses Magnify Eighteen Times

NEW microscopic reading glasses, so powerful that they increase the size of ordinary newsprint eighteen times, have been invented by Dr. William Feinbloom of New York. These glasses are three times more powerful than anything of the kind previously known.

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This big educational sex book available to the public of this country for the first time! Written and illustrated by noted ‘ physicians and medical artists specializing in the fieldf of sexual enlightenment. Learn all the important facts about sex. SEE hundreds of unusually realistic illustrations (many in true-to-life color). Read hundreds of detailed step-by step instructions written in straightforward every-day language. Many of the photos have been collected in book form for the first time. The ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SEX gives you authentic guidance on sex problems. See and understand the physiology and functions of the sex organs of both male and female. This book has already solved the sex problems of many couples and showed them the way to a happy married sex life through confidence and understanding. THE ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SEX sells for $5.00—but it is yours for the amazing low friend-winnina price of $2.98. This offer good for a limited time only! Mail coupon NOW!
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Wooden Highways That Carry Rivers

Wooden Pipe Lines, First Used by the Ancients, Now Built In Gigantic Sizes

By LAWRENCE W. PEDROSE

CONVEYING of water for domestic and industrial purposes dates back to early civilizations. The ancient Romans constructed aqueducts which diverted streams of water to their cities and filled their domestic needs. In more recent times bodies of water have been carried over mountains and plains, far from their sources, and utilized to irrigate deserts or to turn the wheels of industry. These modern engineering achievements constitute one of the romantic pages of industrial history, but it is interesting to note that while many refinements have been introduced, methods have been simplified, and quantity production developed, which combine to enlarge the scope of application—the principle has not materially changed.
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800 feet on a Fireproof Rope Inside a Flaming Volcano

By Arpad KIRNER
French Engineer and Scientific Explorer

A SLENDER white thread, a rope of asbestos, rose straight above my head to the edge of the cliff. Below me were boiling lava and billowing fumes. Dangling at the end of the rope.

I was being lowered 800 feet into the mouth of an active volcano!

A steel helmet protected my head from flying rocks. My suit, my shoes, my gloves, were all made of asbestos. Strapped to my back, were oxygen tanks that enabled me to breathe amid the fumes. I was realizing a scientific adventure which I had planned for years.

My friends thought I was crazy when I announced my intention to explore the crater of an active volcano, to descend the depths of its enormous pit, to photograph the infernal vent-hole while it fumed and grumbled, to go where explosions rapidly follow one another and where phenomena, still mysterious, constantly occur.
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COMPUTER with MEMORY Speeds Inventory

MAKING molehills out of mountains of paper work, “Bizmac” will do in minutes inventory control procedures that formerly took months. Its high-speed memory, an electronic “scratchpad,” can “remember” stored data indefinitely and—on signal —release it in millionths of a second.

Developed by Radio Corporation of America over a five-year period for standard business operations, this four-million-dollar electronic data-processing system has just been installed by the U. S. Army at the Ordnance Tank-Automotive Command in Detroit. It was designed to perform electronically most of the voluminous clerical procedures involved in OTAC’s world-wide stock control program.
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