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The Big Blow

America heads for the storm cellar when the hurricane season arrives with its blustering monsters of wind and fury.

By Harry Kursh

WHEN Miami got one of its hurricane warnings last year, more than half a million people scurried home to batten down the hatches. There was a run on lumberyards—windows had to be boarded. Frantic housewives bought out stores selling batteries to keep radios going in the event electric power failed. Storekeepers went mad trying to keep up with the demand for flashlights, candles, powdered coffee, canned foods and dry ice. Read the rest of this entry »

24-inch Television Tubegets the once-over by two General Electric executives who wear eye protectors in case tube should shatter. The giant picture tube is here mounted on a glass-to-metal cone sealer. The smallest television tube made at G.E.’s Syracuse plant measures 8-1/2 inches. Limited production of king-size tube is to get under way soon.

INVENTIONS WANTED!

REMOVABLE CEILING TILE fitted with snap fasteners could be taken down and cleaned. Jeanne Holwager, Commiskey, Ind.

EDIBLE TAPE would be a great boon to midnight raiders who like to build Dagwood sandwiches. J. C. Taylor, Portland, Conn.

SNAP-OUT LENSES for girls who like to have several frames to go with different outfits. Susan Hall, West Burlington, N. Y.

SNAP-OUT GRILLES that would cut down cleaning time for the spit-and-polish car owner. Larry J. Ealy, Traverse City, Mich.

PLASTIC BUBBLE to be worn by combine operators to keep chaff out of eyes, ears, nose and neck. Billy Elvin, Douglas, Wash.

WORLD’S BEST TOP-SPINNERS

Malayan top makers and spinners are heroes. As they wind up their 12-pound tops on spinning ropes people watch their gestures and expressions with reverence. A crowd of Malayan gamblers waiting for a top to wobble—something that may not happen for 20 minutesis a-quiver with excitement. A famous top, tipped with a diamond, once spun an hour and five minutes on plate glass. Experts show their skill by transferring tops from one precarious perch to another as the minutes spin away.

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“Tele-Talkies” in Color Latest Feat in Radio

Radio’s latest surprise, talking pictures in color, will soon be available to every home. Artists are now to literally stage performances in your living room.

A VERY pretty girl in a fancy dress of many colors sat before a transmitter in a certain section of the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City the other Jay. Just a few steps away, in an adjacent room, a group of famous scientists and journalists, evincing the utmost curiosity, concentrated their attention upon a television receiving apparatus.
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Artistic Hot Dog Stands Fostered by New Organization

DESIGNING and construction of artistic hot dog stands and filling stations is being fostered by the new National Stand Owners’ association of operators of roadside refreshment and motor service stations. Instead of waiting until the highways are further cluttered with temporary, nondescript eyesores, they have set out to dignify and stabilize their business by advocating more attractive and sanitary stations. Read the rest of this entry »

Fast Ice Boat Built With Scraps and Old Model T Engine

LOUIS HEUPEL, of Cleveland, Ohio, wanted a fast ice boat. He had an old Model T Ford engine and didn’t want to make a sail so he set to work. Using scraps of lumber, metal and a variety of available bolts and screws he built the framework for the craft. Then he took the junked motor, pepped it up considerably, had a small crankcase made for it and bolted the propeller to the end of the crankshaft. Placing his motor, rigidly bolted to the upper framework of his craft Heupel was ready to go.

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Spice Your Prints with “Shadowgraphs”

by Roger Clay

PHOTOGRAMS are lots of fun by themselves. But working them in at the margins of real photographs will dramatize the story-telling aspects of the latter.

For example, you shoot a picture of your friend at his morning shave routine, using a lens of normal acceptance angle and focal length. There’s plenty of room at the top of the resulting picture and some at the bottom, too, into which you can “imprint” related designs. So you raid your own medicine chest for a few blades, a razor, and a shaving brush. Read the rest of this entry »

What a silly hobby.

Headline Hunter Preserves Old Newspaper Copies

COLLECTING newspaper headlines of important events is the hobby of Montgomery Mulford of Buffalo, N. Y. Each headline selected is photographed and placed in an album for safekeeping. The upper photograph shows a copy of the Buffalo Express telling of the sinking of the Lusitania. Below is a photograph of the issue explaining the false armistice of November 8, 1918. Although keen disappointment was felt when the armistice report was found to be false, the nation had but a few days to wait before the actual armistice w&s signed.

Like postage stamps, old copies of newspapers many times become rare and achieve considerable value. Some copies of newspapers telling of world events are worth a fortune.

Ah yes, “vari-scenting of mucilage”. Oldest trick in the book.

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Tricks that Trap Mail Thieves

Postal inspectors “never lose their man,” because they use tricks like the vari-scenting of mucilage to trail certain thieves and keep everlastingly on the trail with a variety of methods of detection.

By C. MORAN

A SERIES of thefts of the contents of registered mail was reported to the Chief of Post Office Inspectors at Washington. An inspector assigned to the case limited the area of pilferage to half a dozen post offices. He arranged secretly to have the mucilage at the different stations given faint traces of various scents—lilac, violet, lily of the valley, mignonette, rose, and heliotrope. The next time a theft was reported the inspector smelled of the resealed flap and the thief was speedily apprehended.
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Klaxon was founded in 1908. By 1916 the name had already become genericized. I know because I googled it.

Edison Uses Klaxons to Warn Men of Fire

A LITTLE more than a year ago the big plant of the Edison Storage Battery Company of East Orange, N.J., burned to the ground.

If another fire should occur today the alarm would be sounded with thirty Klaxon automobile horns in-stalled in various parts of the buildings to warn the employees. Read the rest of this entry »