I think this might be the expedition in which George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared.
MOUNT EVEREST ASCENT TO BE ATTEMPTED AGAIN
Like aviators who ascend extreme altitudes, mountain climbers often wear special clothing, protectors for the face and eyes, and carry supplies of oxygen to breathe in the rare atmosphere. The height to which they can go frequently depends upon the efficiency of their equipment. Members of the British geographic expedition, who failed by only 1,700 feet in 1922 to reach the top of Mt. Everest, 29,002 feet above sea level, wore goggles to shield their eyes from the intense rays of the reflected sun, carried tanks of oxygen and had costumes especially designed to meet the rigors of the biting winds. They reported that often as early as 8 o’clock in the morning, the heat of the sun’s rays beating down on their backs caused extreme discomfort. Another effort to conquer the peak is to be made this summer. Every device known to science will be used in the effort.
The Man Who Opened the Door to Space
NO MAN made a greater personal contribution to this fearsome and challenging era of missiles than the late Robert H. Goddard, an ailing, publicity-shy physics professor from Worcester, Mass., who sought only peaceful scientific uses for his epochal inventions.
This month, 14 years after his death at 62, the entire U. S. missile industry will honor him at a conference.
“He was just as surely the father of modern rockets as the Wright brothers were of the airplane,” Henry F. Guggenheim, noted patron of aeronautical research, has declared.
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The Twelve Finest American Classics - A Portfolio of Ageless Cars
By Arthur R. Railton, Automotive Editor
Color photographs by Don Honick
IN THE EIGHT PAGES which follow, Popular Mechanics salutes the Classics among the Classics—12 American automobiles chosen as the finest produced in that golden era defined as the period from 1925 to 1942.
Ranked in the order of their selection, the Classics are portrayed here in true color by Popular Mechanics photographs and sketches. The roll of honor:
1. Duesenberg 1931-J Roadster-Murphy.
2. Duesenberg 1931-J Victoria-Rollston.
3. Lincoln 1932-KB Phaeton Dual Cowl.
4. Packard 1929 Sport Phaeton.
5. Pierce Arrow 1933 Silver Arrow V12.
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The census department had some serious technical chops in 1950. Census workers were given maps and aerial photos of their districts so they could find all of the residences. The punch card counting machines seem pretty advanced as well with data validation circuits that would reject, for example, a two year old with six kids. I wonder how many kids they considered it alright for a two year old to have?
COUNT OFF, AMERICANS…
By Richard F. Dempewolff
For A house-to-house canvass that will make all the brush salesmen in the world look like an army of pikers, wait until you see the one that gets under way April first. Yup, it’s time for the 1950 decennial census, Uncle Sam’s national inventory of noses—the biggest quiz show, most mammoth tabulating phenomenon and most accurate poll in history.
It’s a job that has taxed the ingenuity of a harried Census Bureau every zero year since 1790. At that time 17 U. S. marshals and 600 assistants knocked on colonial doors, asked five questions of whoever answered, then tacked their lists on the walls of local taverns, so that people who’d been skipped could add their names or Xs when they dropped by for a flagon of ale. Results were mailed to the President.
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OLD WORDS GET NEW MEANING IN Queer Trade Lingoes
Workers Coin Original Phrases as Short Cuts in Giving Orders or in Describing Features of Their Jobs
By Gaylord Johnson
THIS ARTICLE TELLS WHY . . .
An engineer is a hog-head
A new circus hand is First of May
Electric current is hot stuff
A yard switchman is a snake
A circus elephant is a bull
A fast freight train is a hot shot
A movie electrician is a gaffer
Circus monkeys are old folks
A freight yard clerk is a mud hop
A circus performer is a finker
IF YOU could listen to the jargon of two freight trainmen, you might hear this:
“You may not know it, Snake, but you’re lookin’ at a stinger that was once in line to ride the cushions. If it hadn’t been for a student tallow-pot—but I’ll tell you about it:
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FIFTY YEARS OF Aluminum
The Strange Story OF THE Magic Metal
By Edwin Teale
JUST half a century ago, the commonest metal in the earth’s crust was as scarce as silver. Prof. Frank F. Jewett, of Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, was pointing out this curious paradox to his chemistry class in the spring of 1883.
“If any of you can extract aluminum in commercial quantities,” he concluded with a smile, “you are sure of a fortune.” A slender student in one of the front rows nudged his neighbor. “I’m going after that metal!” he whispered.
That was the beginning of one of the most dramatic achievements in chemical research. The student was Charles Martin Hall. Hardly three years later, in a wood-shed workshop, using makeshift apparatus and homemade batteries, he achieved the goal which the greatest scientists in the world had failed to attain. On February 23, 1886, Hall rushed into Jewett’s laboratory with a few small buttons of silvery metal in his hand.
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You can view Abe’s one and only patent here.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN AN INVENTOR, PATENT RECORDS REVEAL
WHILE every schoolboy is familiar with the life of Abraham Lincoln— a pioneer home, few books, hard labor at all the many trades of the frontiersman and the battle to save the Union and abolish slavery—few know that he also was an inventor.
To his genius as a statesman a united nation today bears witness, but only a rude model in the archives of the National Museum at Washington remains to give mute evidence that he possessed an inventive ability that alone, if followed, might have won him enduring fame.
Appearing as though it had been whittled out of a shingle and a cigar box, the model is about eighteen or twenty inches long, and bears the inscription: “6469, Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois. Improvement in method of lifting vessels over shoals. Patented May 22, 1849.”
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From Cook Stoves to Tanks . . . They Roll from the Automobile Factories
By SCHUYLER VAN DUYNE
THE Detroit genius for industrial organization is sorting out the sudden chaotic avalanche of defense orders with its customary frantic and incredible orderliness. It is responding to the fabulous impetus of something like a billion and a half in armament orders assigned by the U. S. Government to the automobile industry. The vast industrial center, already a huge magnet, drawing raw materials and manufactured parts selectively from many parts of the country, is being called upon suddenly for all its reserve power. Its standard products, such as automobiles, trucks, and their accessories, were in extraordinary de-mand, but now there are imperative pleas also for airplane, marine, and tank engines; for the airplanes and the tanks themselves and for antiaircraft guns, cook stoves, ammunition components, refrigerators, Diesel engines, and a conglomeration of other articles.
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This article was published less than a year after the tomb was discovered.
TREASURES OF ANCIENT THEBES IN NEW-FOUND TOMB
By R.C. Folger
TREASURE that has been variously estimated to be worth from $15,000,000 to $40,000,000, has recently been brought to light upon the opening of a tomb believed to be that of Tutankhamen, who ruled in Egypt over 3,000 years ago.
The first objects to greet the eyes of the entrants to the tomb, were three magnificent state couches, each made of gilt wood with exquisite carvings and decorated with a lion’s head and other emblematic figures. On these rested gilt beds also beautifully carved and inlaid with ivory and jewels, and a number of boxes of rare workmanship. These boxes were inlaid with ivory and ebony with gilt inscriptions.
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It does not sound like this trip was very fun.
The Real Truth About the Wilkins Polar Sub
The real story of the submarine Nautilus, which set out on a fantastic Jules Verne expedition to travel under ice to the North Pole, and which now lies abandoned in a European harbor after an amazing succession of catastrophes, is here told you for the first time by a member of the expedition. Fascinating, thrilling— an “inside” story—scientific adventure in the raw!
by ALFRED ALBELLI who interviewed Arthur O. Blumburg, Chief Electrician’s Mate of the Nautilus
ARTHUR O. BLUMBURG Mr. Blumburg has been for 15 years in the United States Navy submarine service, and was granted a leave of absence to lend his expert services to the Wilkins Polar Submarine Expedition. That Mr. Blumburg was one of the most valued members of the crew, is testified to by the following sentences taken from a letter written to the Secretary of the Navy by Commander Sloan Danenhower of the Nautilus: “Arthur O. Blumburg had charge of recommissioning the electrical department, the installation of the storage batteries and special gyro compass, the automatic pilot, and other electrical equipment. He accomplished this work with great dispatch and efficiency, and has been a faithful, zealous, and efficient head of the electrical department throughout the entire voyage.”
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Atomic Clock Verifies Oldest Bible Manuscript
By James T. Howard
They shall heat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
—Isaiah II, 4.
WHEN the atom bomb first mushroomed its message or death and destruction into the sky six years ago, there were many who speculated on the future uses of atomic knowledge. But few if any put Bible study on their list.
Now, as Christmas of 1951 nears, we find the seeming miracle has come to pass. Science is revealed as the handmaid of religion; radioactive carbon-14 and the Geiger counter are instruments for casting new light on the accuracy of our modem Bible. Cosmic rays that bombarded the earth when Christ was born have left behind a coded message for nuclear physicists to decipher.
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