June 12, 2006

LOG STUMP PICNIC STOVE and TRASH BURNER (Mar, 1946)

LOG STUMP PICNIC STOVE and TRASH BURNER
Looks like tree stump—made of durable reinforced Haydite concrete colored in natural gray or brown—complete with grill, charcoal pan and grate. Beautify your yard—satisfaction guaranteed. Use as trash burner—safe in wind—Will not harm grass, trees, etc. Only $29.45—Freight prepaid east of Rockies. For free descriptive circular write to:
W. O. JOHNSON CO., Dept. PS-2, Omaha 6, Neb.

Bathers Sail While Floating (Nov, 1937)

Bathers Sail While Floating
A NOVEL contrivance utilizing a slab of cork of a size capable of supporting an average man’s weight in water and a small sail to provide propulsion has been devised by Lieut.-Commander W. P. Hastie, of the British Royal Naval Reserve.

The sail is attached to a small metal mast inserted in the cork. Strapping the cork to his stomach, a non-swimmer can float, using his hands as rudders to guide his passage through the water. By twisting his body, the floater can take advantage of wind changes. The sail is movable, being controlled by a cord held by the bather.

June 11, 2006

Feminine “Human Projectile” Is Caught By Team Mates (Oct, 1935)

Feminine “Human Projectile” Is Caught By Team Mates
GOING the male ”human cannon balls” just one better, petite Lillian Glantz uses no net, but is shot from the mouth of the cannon directly into the arms of her waiting team mates.

Not only does she work without a net, but in place of the heavy anti-friction suits worn by the male projectiles, she uses a modern bathing suit.

In her flight through the air she reaches an altitude of thirty feet. Her two catchers, George Andre and Rudy Mason break her fall with an arm and body hold.

The trio are members of the Jack Eddy troupe, and they devised the breath taking stunt while showing in Chicago this summer. They are taking their act to the Pacific coast for the San Diego Exposition.

June 10, 2006

X-Ray Tells if You’re Grand Opera Star (Sep, 1932)

X-Ray Tells if You’re Grand Opera Star

IS THE time drawing near when science will be able to devise an almost mathematical formula for making great singers out of any aspirant to musical fame? Is there any way to determine the precise physiological differences in vocal organs and other parts of the body which might account for good, bad and indifferent singing voices?

An attempt at answering the questions is being made by scientists, who have made X-ray exposures, during the actual act of singing, of the throats and heads of such famous opera stars as Lawrence Tibbet, Benjamin Gigli, Reinold Werrenrath, and others of vocal fame.

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June 9, 2006

Table-Top Photos of Grasshoppers (Jun, 1952)

Here’s an unusual photographic hobby:

Table-Top Photos of Grasshoppers

CREATING LIFELIKE SCENES in miniature is Dr. Lehman Wendell’s way of relaxing. The Minneapolis dentist arranges his insect “actors” with dime-store props. Their stage is the top of a tahle in the basement; lighting is supplied by two ordinary bulbs, one cm each side. Dr. Wendell snaps the scenes with a single-lens reflex camera and does his own processing.

June 6, 2006

Grease Used For Protection (Nov, 1939)

Grease Used For Protection
GIRL aquaplane racers are evidently willing to sacrifice beauty for comfort, judging from the above photo. Jeanne Gilbert is shown getting a coat of grease at the hands of Babe Meneffee. well known speedboat driver who towed Jeanne’s aquaplane in a race off the Pacific coast. Other girls entered tried out the grease to protect them from wind and spray during the difficult 44-mile event from Santa Catalina Island to Hermosa Beach. Calif.

June 3, 2006

Swim Coordinator Really Teaches (Jun, 1936)

Swim Coordinator Really Teaches

WHEN learning to swim, so many people emulate a wet hen that they get nowhere at all. But with the new “Swim-Co-ordina-tor the novice is assured of learning the right way to swim from the very start.

You lay yourself on the apparatus, as Bernice Claire is doing in the illustration, and by turning the hand cranks your arms and legs move up and down in exact duplication of the American crawl. Thus, after one or two lessons in “dry land” swimming, even those who have never swam before can handle themselves capably in the water. The device is installed at the Hotel Sheldon Pool, Gotham.

June 2, 2006

Wear a Flash on Your Head

Filed under: Just Weird, Photography — @ 8:51 am

Of course in cartoonland people would just assume you’re having one brilliant insight after another.

Synchronizing Photo Flash Lamp With a Camera Shutter
THE difficulty of synchronizing the flare of a photo flash lamp with the click of the shutter is frequently encountered by enthusiasts of the camera art. There’s a way to overcome this difficulty, however, and that is by constructing the little gadget shown in the accompanying photo.

The contrivance consists of a flat type pocket flashlight battery mounted between two pieces of wood, on the top of which is affixed a common porcelain socket to hold the photo flash lamp.

On the base of this baseboard is mounted a pair of contacts in such a position that the loading lever will push them together when the shutter clicks. The wiring is illustrated in the insert.

Synchronization is achieved by the simultaneous clicking of the shutter and the closing of the photo flashlamp circuit through the silver contacts. The duration of the flash is 1/50 of a second, which occurs when the shutter is wide open.

For convenience, the flash lamp unit is secured to the head by an elastic band, thus leaving the hands free to operate the camera. The lamp should be backed by an aluminum reflector.

May 29, 2006

Tunnel-Digging as a Hobby (Aug, 1932)

Tunnel-Digging as a Hobby

ONE of the oddest hobbies in the world is that of Dr. H. G. Dyar, international authority on moths and butterflies of the Smithsonian Institution, who has found health and recreation in digging an amazing series of tunnels beneath his Washington home.

Almost a quarter of a mile of tunnels has been completed, lined with concrete. The deepest passage, illustrated in the accompanying diagram, extends 32 feet down.
Every bit of earth was removed unaided by Dr. Dyar, being carried out in pails. He found the tunnel-digging an appealing form of exercise to relieve the intense strain of his work day, which involved much close work with high-power microscopes.

The catacombs are constructed in three levels, with steps and iron pipe ladders leading between different tiers. The idea first came to Dr. Dyar when he sought to make an underground entrance to his furnace cellar.

May 28, 2006

Holy Taxidermy (Dec, 1935)

Big Fun - Big money

Learn to MOUNT Birds and Animals
Be a TAXIDERMIST

Learn this WONDERFUL new, fascinating and PROFITABLE art at home by mail. This old famous school, with over 100,000 students GUARANTEES success. Thousands of Popular Mechanics readers have already enrolled. Mount and preserve GAME ANIMALS AND BIRDS like life. Mount common and domestic animals in highly amusing and human-like groups. The actual squirrels shown above, MOUNTED AND DRESSED up. cost but a few cents for materials, but sold for $40 for a window display. Rabbits, frogs, mice. cats, pigs, sparrows, pigeons—ALL can be mounted in funny and interesting groups, imitating human situations. Great fun, tremendously fascinating, extremely profitable.

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Dance Fees Set According to the Chemical Value of Coeds (Feb, 1935)

Only geeks from MIT could come up with a scheme where every girl going to a dance gets publicly weighed on entrance. Perhaps they could also charge by body fat percentage or cup size.

Dance Fees Set According to the Chemical Value of Coeds
THE true chemical value of the coed ranges between fifty cents and a dollar. This strange fact was revealed recently when students of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were required to pay the chemical value of their co-partners as an entrance fee to an annual dance.

This strange method of payment is not at all unusual for Massachusetts Institute students. In the past, on this occasion, girls have been paid for according to both weight and intelligence.

The girls, upon entering, are asked to step upon the scale. This scale determines their weight, and it is shown upon a breakdown calculator in terms of chemical elements.

The variation of chemicals per pound in different bodies is not great enough to cause an error in this large scale method of determination. The reason for the low value is that the body is composed almost entirely of water.

May 26, 2006

Hair, Feathers Aid Cancer War (Sep, 1939)

Hair, Feathers Aid Cancer War

HAIR trimmed from 1,000,000 heads and feathers of 500,000 chickens provide a crystalline substance known as cystine used by eastern laboratories in the widening war on cancer. This new weapon in the fight against disease is a colorless, odorless chemical. Five thousand haircuts provide 100 pounds of hair, which in turn yield only five pounds of cystine.

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