Very cool. This article was written back when they still had a big network of pneumatic tubes connecting all of the post offices in Manhattan.
What Happens When You Mail a Letter
By Herbert O. Johansen
With the Christmas rush on, the complex network of men and machines that speeds the mails is working in high gear.
WHEN you drop a letter in a mailbox and hear the slot lid click, you probably give the lid a couple of extra flips for good measure. In return for that effort, plus licking the stamp, you take it for granted that your message of love, business, sorrow, cheer or complaint will be delivered to the right person at the right place in the shortest possible time.
And it almost certainly will be—along with the other 127,677,738 letters that are mailed in the United States on an average day—enough letters, if their envelopes were laid end-to-end, to reach from New York to Shanghai.
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At least until the invention of the Bic Pen.
NEW CAR LOCK THWARTS THIEF
Using a cylindrical key, a recently marketed auto-bile lock for doors or ignition is said to afford protection against thieves. A thief attempting to open the lock would have to pick each of its seven plungers separately. Drilling or shearing off the lock is said to be impossible because of the hardened steel shell. The lock does not bear a number, a secret number being furnished the owner. Duplicate keys can be obtained from the factory only on presentation of the complete lock, which prevents thieves from securing a duplicate key for unlawful use.
It’s all in the name. Once they changed the name of this from “FIRE ESCAPE” to “sun roof” sales took off.
FIRE ESCAPE TRAP IN TOP OF AUTO
A motor car with a fire escape is a novelty introduced by a British inventor. The top of the car is cut away to provide a large rectangular aperture, which is normally closed by a fitted panel that excludes rain and snow. If an accident should turn the car on its side, however, the panel automatically falls out, thus allowing the occupants to escape or be helped out quickly. In case of fire following a collision, the inventor declares, his innovation would be an invaluable aid to life-saving and would probably greatly reduce the number of serious injuries that occur when driver is trapped in car.
This makes those dorky 3D walk-throughs seem a lot more useful doesn’t it?
Lilliputian’s-eye viewer puts you inside tiny model
A slender optical tube fitted with 18 miniature lenses provides realistic views inside architects’, landscapers’, town planners’, and other scale models. With a camera and adapter on the eyepiece, you get photos like the circular ones at left.
The British-made Modelscope is a combination microscrope, periscope, and telescope with an aperture at one side .3 inch from the end. On the floor of a 1:200 model, this corresponds to eye level at the same scale. At other heights, it shows vistas from windows, balconies, and other points. Made by Optec Reactors, Ltd., of London, the unit is distributed in the U.S. by H. C. I. Sales Corp., NYC.
