I think they might be missing a few issues here…

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A Subway Through the Sahara

A tunnel railway beneath the shifting Sahara desert sands of northern Africa, covering the thousand miles between Morocco and Timbuktu, is proposed by a French engineer as a solution of desert travel.

COINCIDENT with the project of a tunnel under the English channel to connect France and England, a French engineer, Paul Remy, has conceived the idea of a 125-mile subway through the Sahara desert in northern Africa. The route of the railway would cover the 1000 miles between Morocco and Timbuktu, but all except 125 miles of this distance can be built on stretches of rocky and barren land which offer no obstacles to a surface railway. The 125-mile stretch of country known as the Shifting Sands in the heart of the Sahara, is filled with sand dunes which blow up overnight to tremendous heights, only to disappear on their endless march where the hot winds bore through them and urge them onward. Surface rails, of course, would be impossible in this land where mountains of wind-blown sand would cover them overnight.

For this reason Remy’s tunnel project seems the only practicable idea yet advanced for speeding up desert travel. As proposed, the tunnel would be a huge metal tube supported on a skeleton viaduct of cross-ties and piles sunk into the sand.

It would be a simple task to construct pipe lines through the shell of the tube so that water, gas, electric cables and telephone lines could be run through them. Power for the trains would naturally be electric, since it would be impossible to use coal or oil-burning locomotives because of the ventilation problems involved.

In time the desert sands would submerge the tunnel entirely, insulating it from the intense heat so that travel would be far more comfortable inside the tunnel than upon the surface. Were it not for the fact that there is no water available, it would be possible to plant grasses in the sands and anchor them with plant growth so that they could not shift overnight. As it is, however, the tunnel seems to be the only possible means of bridging the heart of the desert.

Fantastic as such a scheme sounds at first, and high as would be the initial cost, no other entirely satisfactory method of rapidly crossing the shifting sand area has been offered. For both economic and military reasons France is determined to build a railway across the Sahara. Some means of rapid transport of troops in case of a national emergency, is very desirable.

Quick! Someone call Batman!

Human Sunshine Tester Compares Two Brands
Which has the better quality of sunshine, Florida or California? To settle this longstanding dispute, the gentleman at the left is exposing half of his epidermis to Florida’s sun, reserving the clothed half for a comparison test in California.

Ah, racier days. The caption doesn’t say she’s “holding it”, no, she’s “fondling it”.

Think of the Light Bill!

EVEN at reduced rates for household electricity, Mr. U. Consumer would think a long time before putting one of these new German incandescent lights in the parlor; it consumes 50 kilowatts of current, or 67 horsepower. The multiple filaments are shown clearly, at the right.

This young lady is fondling, not a balloon, but the largest incandescent lamp bulb in the world, over 100,000 candlepower. As they used to say on the Fourth of July—”Do not hold in the
hand after lighting!” (Osram Lamp Works)

Sounds great, what could possibly go wrong?

Compressed Air to Shoot Packages Into Moving Train

ENGAGING the attention of mechanical engineers who are trying to figure out ways and means of restoring the railroads to a profit-making basis, is the idea illustrated above, in which a torpedo-tube containing packages of mail or express is shot into the funnel-like car at the rear of a moving train, making it unnecessary to stop and pick up small shipments.
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New Propellerless Plane Flies Forward or Backward and Goes Straight Up

ANEW type of plane which can rise vertically and fly forward or backward, or hover in the air was successfully tested the other day in New York. It is the invention of William Rahn, right, in photo below, who constructed the craft with the collaboration of Gus Miller, left, formerly with the Zeppelin works in Germany.

The strange looking sky hopper is powered with a Wright Whirlwind motor and is said to be capable of a speed of 135 miles per hour.

While this is a news flash and no further details are at this time available, the principle seems to be sort of an “autogyro on the flat.” The wings are disposed about a central axis and apparently change their incidence so as to produce both lift and negative drag which hops the ship along. Possibly the tests were not successful, for nothing further seems to have startled the world from this source, although a plane of these characteristics would certainly set the world on its ear, so to speak.

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Fort More Than Mile High?

NEARLY fifty years ago, Gustave Eiffel erected his wonder of the world in Paris—a tower of iron framework 987 feet high. A generation was to pass before this was exceeded in height by a number of the skyscrap-ing office buildings of New York.

Now another French engineer, Henri Lossier, proposes a jump in construction to 6,560 feet, nearly a mile and a quarter high, in the form of a concrete tower, to be part of the defences of Paris. From its cone-shaped hangars, some over a mile above the ground, airplanes could be launched on a minute’s notice; while firmly-mounted anti-aircraft guns at this great elevation would reach invading planes more readily. The recoil of a hundred four-inch guns at once would vibrate it four inches. The details are shown in the illustrations, as also a comparison with a well-known New England mountain. In times of peace, such a structure could be devoted to many purposes; its great height furnishing advantages not otherwise obtainable, such as pure, thin air, and sunshine.
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Pneumatic Tubes Shoot Hot Meals To Homes

WHIZZING at mile-a-minute speed through pneumatic tubes far beneath the streets of Berlin, Germany, are thermos bottles each containing part of some housewifes meal. A phone call is enough to bring, in less than fifteen minutes, a complete meal ready to serve, containing exactly the desired quantity and kind of food for each course.
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Yes, cure Hay Fever with a sun-burnt nostril. Sounds like it should work to me…

VIOLET-RAY LAMP PROBES NOSE TO CURE HAY FEVER
SUNBURNED backs, as all know, may now be had from a “health lamp”; but here we have a mercury-vapor lamp in a quartz rod, small enough to pass up the nose and sunburn its inside. Four out of five cases of “hay fever” are cured.

It sure would screw up your property value if someone tried to build a billion ton sky-darkening airport over your house. Also I’m not quite sure why it needs to rotate…. bonus feature?

Proposes Orientable Roof-Top Airports For Cities
PROPOSED as a solution to the problem of locating an airport in the heart of any big city, a design for a long orientable runway, which would be mounted on circular tracks atop tall buildings, as sketched above, has been conceived by a French engineer.

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Details on the NX2 — Our Atomic Plane

When will our “hottest” bomber take to the skies? How will it perform? What about the radiation danger? Here are the answers

By JAMES JOSEPH

OUR long-awaited atomic-powered airplane—Convair’s Model NX2—is finally on the drawing boards, its components in various stages of construction and testing.

After 14 years’ research and an investment of close to 1 billion dollars, the plane’s reactor is under test and two different engine systems, both slated for early flight testing, are in advanced development.
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This reminds me a lot of the intelligent design movement.

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$5,000 for Proving the Earth is a Globe
by JAY EARLE MILLER

Post and Gatty didn’t fly around the world, according to Wilbur Glenn Voliva, they merely flew in a circle around the North Pole. This article presents Voliva’s theory of a flat world, and tells you how you can win his offer of $5,000 for proving that he is wrong.

WOULD you like to earn $5,000? If you can prove that the world is a sphere, floating in space, turning on its own axis, revolving around the sun, you can earn a prize of that amount. Such a prize has been posted for years, offered by Wilbur Glenn Voliva, general overseer of Zion, 111., home of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church, founded some thirty years ago by the late John Alexander Dowie.
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Water Succeeds Gasoline As New Invention Is Perfected

WATER powered automobiles are predicted for the not too distant future as the result of an invention of G. H. Garrett of Dallas, Texas, which substitutes water for gasoline.

Garrett uses an electrolytic carburetor which breaks up water by electrolysis into its component gases, hydrogen and oxygen, and then forces the explosive hydrogen into the combustion chambers for fuel.

For operating the automobile motor on which the tests have been conducted, Garrett has added an over-size generator to supply the extra electricity needed by the carburetor. Beyond that, the motor has needed no changes, though it has been in operation continuously for several days.

Garrett has protected his device with patents.