NEW PLEASURE CRAFT

A LOS ANGELES man has invented a new type of pleasure boat. The boat has a round, metal air-filled pontoon to keep it afloat. There are twin paddles to control the boat. One of them furnishes the motive power while the other steers the odd craft. The interior of the boat is shown here with three young ladies engaged in giving it a trial spin. The boat is built to carry four persons comfortably but a maximum load of eight people can be safely handled.

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Diving Under Ice to Solve Polar Mysteries

by LEW HOLT

Sir Hubert Wilkins’ amazing journey under the North Pole in the submarine Nautilus, now under way, may discover evidence which will solve long-standing polar mysteries. Are there undiscovered islands near the pole—will the expedition discover a fathomless hole at the axis of the earth? Some of the riddles they will answer are described here.

HOW deep is the Polar sea? What is the effect of Arctic ice on the world’s weather? Can meteorologists, from a study of conditions at the North Pole, forecast months in advance droughts and hurricanes which will visit the rest of the world? Is there any basis of truth in the beliefs of some scientists that the Arctic basin represents a great hole in the earth left when the moon hurtled out of it ages ago? Will a submarine traveling through Arctic waters emerge gold-plated because of the supposed relatively heavy gold content of northern seas? These are a few of the scores of scientific riddles which will be solved by Sir Hubert Wilkins and his crew of the amazing submarine Nautilus, which is now traveling toward the Arctic, bent on the startling project of diving under the ice of the North Pole to settle once and for all questions which have puzzled scientists for years. If the mechanical safeguards installed on the Nautilus—described in last month’s issue of Modern Mechanics and Inventions—are able to carry the submarine safely through the innumerable perils it will encounter on its daring journey through the top of the world, then this expedition, which many men have called foolhardy and doomed to certain destruction, will have justified itself adequately in the eyes of science.

It may seem at first glance that the mysteries locked in Arctic ice can have little practical interest to a world which occupies warmer lands thousands of miles removed from the North Pole. But if, through the establishment of weather stations at various points in the Arctic, meteorologists are able to gather information which will enable them to tell the corn growers of Iowa that they are due to have a hot, dry summer two years hence, or to inform orange growers of California that the season of 1935 will be wet and cold, then the value of the information gathered at the top of the world will have proved itself well-nigh priceless. That is one of the purposes of the Wilkins expedition. It hopes to find spots where permanent weather stations can be established.

It has been calculated that 18,000 cubic miles of drift ice reach the Atlantic ocean yearly from Arctic regions. When you consider that all the people in the world can crowd into a space of one cubic mile, as illustrated elsewhere in this article, you begin to realize the tremendous volume of ice which affects the world’s weather. There is even more ice in the Antarctic—so much that sea levels throughout the globe would be raised 30 feet if it were to melt in a day. The movement and distribution of polar ice is not uniform from year to year. Weather stations could report on its distribution and so supply information which, in connection with knowledge already at hand from temperate regions, would make long-distance forecasting a possibility.

There may be islands in the Arctic sea on which permanent stations could be established. If there are, the Nautilus is likely to find them. There are thousands of miles of polar wastes which have never been explored. Who can predict what mystery land may be discovered by the expedition? The whole trip is the most amazing voyage of exploration since the days of Columbus. All existing maps may have to be re-drawn when Wilkins returns.

No one has any idea of the contour of the bottom of the Arctic basin. There is even a theory which has gained some credence that there may be a hole through the center of the earth, extending to unfathomable depths. This is not likely, but possible. The fact that the sounding instruments carried to the Pole by Peary were not long enough to strike bottom has given encouragement to believers in this theory. No one can definitely say, now, what the facts are—but when the Nautilus returns it will bring with it an accurate chart of the sea bottom. Soundings will be made by the electrical method familiarly known as the “sonometer”, in which a sound wave is sent from the submarine to the bottom of the sea and its return echo registered. The time interval consumed makes it easy to compute the distance traveled.

Ice drills in the submarine which can bore through 100 feet of ice enable fresh air to be brought aboard the ship, and makes it possible for observers from the sub to get out on the ice to study polar conditions, even when there is no stretch of open water available for the ship to come to the surface.

A photographic balloon filled with helium will be used to send up a camera to take aerial photos. In case it seems desirable to know the nature of the country before venturing out of the submarine, the camera balloon can be sent up through the conning tower and an air photo snapped. This will show the country for miles around. A compass carried in the balloon will be photographed on the same plate, so that the problem of direction will be solved. In effect, the aerial balloon will produce a made-to-order map in an emergency.

Water-tight movie cameras are also part of the equipment of the Nautilus. With them pictures can be taken beneath the ice of the polar sea.

Experiments in short-wave radio broad- casting will be conducted at the Pole. It is not known whether the sub can broadcast when submerged, but it will be lying on the surface often enough so that operators in the United States with short-wave receivers should be successful in catching the signals from the North Pole.

What sort of life exists in the Arctic? Walrus and polar bears are about all that occur to the average person. But there is unquestionably a wide variety of sea life, animal and vegetable, existing in minute form in Polar waters. A unique mechanism by which the Nautilus can collect samples of such life, and preserve them for reference, has been devised.

A roll of muslin, unfolding something after the fashion of a roll of film, will filter samples of Arctic water through it constantly. Sea life which collects on the muslin will be preserved as the roll is wound up. Later on, when the sub returns to civilization, it will be a simple matter to unroll the precious muslin and make an exhaustive study of the sea life adhering to it. No one can predict what odd forms of life will be discovered.

Even the bottom of the sea will yield up its secrets. Hollow tubes will be lowered from the submarine, collecting deposits of ooze which will give geologists an insight into the physical construction of the northern hemisphere. Evidence thus collected may serve to disprove or substantiate current theories as to the origin of the world. Perhaps, ages ago, there was land at the Pole where now is only water. Perhaps the temperature was warmer, the land occupied by a long vanished race. If so, the sample-collecting tubes of the Nautilus will probably supply the evidence. Magnetism, that odd force which operates compasses, will likewise be studied. Probably the Nautilus will float directly over the magnetic pole. If she does, her compass needles will likely point vertically instead of to the north.

What about currents in the Arctic ocean? It is roughly known that there is a current flowing from the Bering Sea towards Spitsbergen, but there is very little real knowledge on the subject. Many problems of economic importance can be hastened toward solution when scientists know more about Arctic currents. For instance, it is possible that the great Hudson Bay country in Canada can be opened up by connecting it with England by means of a submarine trade route. Hudson Bay is a natural sea outlet for the great wheat-raising country of western Canada. If the Nautilus demonstrates its ability to fend off and dodge icebergs in the region of Greenland, the submarine may come into its own as a wheat cargo carrier. For, as a glance at the map reproduced elsewhere in this article will show, a northern submarine route between Hudson Bay and Liverpool, a world wheat market, is the most direct and shortest that can exist. Furthermore, a submarine can carry a respectable cargo tonnage which may some day make it a competitor of steamers in certain cases.

The “polar front” theory of weather prediction, which may be studied by the Wilkins expedition through the use of sounding balloons and instruments for measuring air densities, has as its basis the following facts: The mass of air in the northern hemisphere is 10,000,000,000 tons greater in January than in the following July. This means that this vast tonnage of air is shifted once a year, developing terrific energy. The horsepower developed by winds has been calculated at 20,000,000,000. Some day this vast source of latent power may be tapped.

Even the force of gravity, always a mystery, but today more mysterious than ever with Prof. Albert Einstein challenging the principles established by the great Newton, will be investigated by the expedition. It is known that the force of gravity varies in different locations on the earth. Instruments carried on the Nautilus will enable scientific members of the crew to take records that may have an important bearing on the mystery of gravitation.

Some one has suggested to Sir Hubert Wilkins that his submarine will be gold-plated when it comes home from the Arctic. It is supposed that the Arctic ocean has a heavy gold content, and that it will be deposited on the metallic sub, attracted by the electric batteries which propel the ship—a sort of huge electroplating scheme devised by nature. There is little likelihood that this much to be desired event will come to pass, but there is a certain amount of justification for the prediction. Not only Arctic seas, but all sea water, contains minute quantities of gold in suspension. Science has long known this, but no satisfactory means of extracting the metal cheaply has yet been devised. Submarines traveling through temperate waters have shown no tendency to collect gold-plate on their hulls.

It will be seen from the foregoing that it would be a brave man indeed who would describe the Wilkins expedition as a mere adventure. It is an adventure, of course— so was the journey of Columbus to the new world—but it is a project which may prove of inestimable value to the world at large.

There is always the possibility that these daring men may not come back. The Nautilus may be crushed in grinding ice, may become hopelessly wedged in the bottom of an iceberg. No one denies the dismaying odds of peril and sudden death which confront the expedition.

Even as you read these words, the Nautilus is somewhere on its way toward its amazing goal.

Bon voyage!

Crossing The Atlantic in this overgrown barrel is the intention of Peter Olsen and Mark Charlton. Their $2,500 tub is 10 feet long; 6 feet, 9 inches high at the bilge; weighs more than two tons; and has a four-foot, 700-pound keel and a four-foot rudder. A 22-foot mast fits into the foremost hole of the barrel.

Floating Fuel Station for SEAPLANES

IN THE future, when airplane travel comes to be as commonplace as automobile travel, we may expect to see floating filling stations, such as shown in the drawing above, dotting the airplane travel lanes of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This is by no means a fantastic project of dreamers, for already just such floating service stations are to be seen scattered along the Pacific coast; and a west coast oil company, looking to the future, has announced its intentions of establishing a chain of 99 such stations for the accommodation of planes journeying up and down the seaboard.

These floating service stations are marked by neon lighted towers and are equipped to service a plane in any way necessary, their chief function, however, being refueling. A wireless transmitter and receiver keeps the station in constant communication with land, so that weather information and emergency orders can be provided for the pilots. When a pilot wants to take on fuel he brings his ship up alongside the barge, fastens his mooring lines to the mooring post, and swings the hose, which is attached to the projecting fuel arm, into position and signals to the attendant to begin pumping.

The barge is moored in place by means of anchors. All fuel tanks are below decks, with no projection above save for the office at the stern. The fueling pumps are sunk in pits to safeguard the wings of planes moored alongside.

Auto-Boat Speedy on Land or Sea

YOU may take your choice and call it a sea-going auto or a road-boat, but whatever it is, the vehicle shown in the photo below performs nicely on land or water, developing 25 miles an hour in the liquid element and 40 per on terra firma.

The land-boat (or sea-auto) was invented by Peter Prell of Union, New Jersey, presumably for the purpose of beating the jam on both tube and ferry while commuting to New York.

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UNDERSEA SPIES

BY JAMES NEVIN MILLER

BACK in December, 1944, Lieut. Earl E. Cook of Seattle, won the Navy Cross for a unique achievement. First, in a successful effort to locate three enemy depth bombs known to be in immediate danger of detonation, he dove deep inside a patrol bomber sunk in a vital channel off Oahu, Hawaii. Then for three never-to-be-forgotten days he directed a six-man team of divers which finally recovered the death-dealing weapons.

This daring young officer was one of a group of “undersea spies” who undertook the most dangerous and difficult assignments of the war. Trained with painstaking care in a unique type of Intelligence work, most of them were members of the Navy’s underwater demolition teams.

Unarmed, dressed only in swimming trunks, members of these teams swam to action, braving enemy fire and sharks, to clear with explosives any natural or man-made obstacle from the beaches chosen as objectives of our amphibious landings.

These “spies in trunks” in many instances were provided with revolutionary equipment that furnished underwater photographic eyes for their special brand of sub-sea Intelligence. Incidentally, this new equipment is expected to have important applications in peacetime salvage. Right after Pearl Harbor, faced by the problem of determining accurately the amount of damage to American warships crippled or destroyed by the Jap sneak attack, the Navy found existing underwater photographic equipment and techniques impractical in the extreme depths and dirty water in which they were forced to work. Sketches made by divers from personal exploration took precious time and lacked the extreme accuracy and detail required for salvage work. So it happened that the en- gineers of Photo Utilities, Inc., in cooperation with the Navy, developed an electrically-operated multiple exposure camera capable of withstanding pressures at depths up to 225 feet. In this connection they used the automatic motor and film transport mechanism manufactured by Graflex, Inc., the 90 mm. wide-angle Graflex Optar lens in the Graflex synchronized shutter originally designed for Speed Graphic press cameras, and a special aluminum pressure case with pressure type controls for lens diaphragm and shutter. The camera, using only standard film, filters and flashbulbs, can be operated from the surface by remote control, yet it is compact enough to be carried and operated by a single diver.

Because of the extreme murkiness of choppy waters and great depths, most undersea photographic work requires from one to four standard size flashbulbs. Special waterproof socket reflectors developed by the Mines Equipment Co., prevent the danger of short circuits and make it possible to change bulbs under water. In crystal-clear areas of the Pacific however, standard snapshot exposures are possible at depths as great as 100 feet.

Extreme depth of field and focusing from two feet to infinity are possible with a helical mount which moves the film toward and away from the lens instead of the opposite standard procedure.

A dome-shaped aluminum pressure case protects the camera from damage by water or pressure. For the first time in undersea equipment, the curved protecting glass over the lens forms an integral part of the optical system, providing critical definition under all conditions. Special waterproof compartments within the camera prevent total damage in case of accident to one or more sections.

Getting back to the exploits of the “underwater spies”: exactly how they were able to invade enemy beachheads to pave the way for landings in force probably never will be told in its entirety. This much, however, may now be revealed: They were the first ashore and al- ways faced the risk of heavy casualties. In fact, their losses in Normandy were as high as 40 per cent.

Yet their work was vital to the success of our landing operations. They cleared enemy beaches of obstructions. They blasted ways through reefs so landing ships might enter. Their sacrifices helped to keep down the casualties among the soldiers who arrived on the succession of D-Days in the Pacific, invariably days after the sub-sea Intelligence experts had done their work.

The first training school for underwater demolition teams was organized by Commander Draper L. Kauffman of Bethesda, Md. He and his daring associates went through a big part of the Pacific war. * “Every time our men went in,” he said, “they expected to suffer heavy casualties. After one or two operations we felt certain that the Jap would take steps to prevent our accomplishing future jobs other than by simply shooting at us. We expected to be blown sky high by mines waiting for our swimmers and to find other traps specifically designed to stop us when the teams left their boats and swam in to carry out reconnaissance and demolition of obstructions. These the Jap failed to do and contented himself with plastering us with cannon, rifle and machine gun fire. We didn’t want to emphasize his mistakes.”

In open daylight jobs destroyers and converted destroyers, cruisers and even battleships, along with bombing and strafing planes, kept the enemy at bay while our underwater experts worked around reefs and along the beaches.

The value of the sub-sea spies was twofold. They obtained information as to whether mines and obstacles lay in the way of a planned landing operation, and they eliminated obstructions wherever necessary.

Their attire was simple—swimming trunks, light swimming shoes sometimes fitted with a fin to speed up swimming, and large goggles for working under water. Their tools, besides the sub-sea camera, were explosives and fuses and gear for securing them into position.

Their mother ships were converted destroyers which carried smaller landing craft for transporting personnel when close to the reefs. From here on in, small rubber boats and swimming were the only means of transportation.

Underwater spying had to be rapid and sure. Often on exposed reefs where a man was too clearly a target, the demolition men had to work for short periods when tides partially or fully covered the reefs. Early in the work our officers and men learned that it was very difficult for the enemy to hit a human head bobbing in the water. Normally the demolition men laid their high explosives, connected by cords of instantaneous explosive material, around a large group of obstacles to be blown out. When the safety fuse was touched off, the whole area of obstacles went up together. Synchronized watches and radio contact were used among the platoons or groups of men to assure that explosives were not touched off prematurely. On pre-arranged signal, all swimmers would get out of the area of danger as fast as they could to their rubber boats, thence to landing craft to escape the deluge of flying coral, concrete, steel and broken timbers.

They not only blew up these obstructions but often cut channels through the reefs so that the larger landing craft could bring men and tanks to the chosen beaches. Time after time secret reconnaissance was required at selected landing beaches without leaving a trace that the beaches had been visited.

Auto Fitted With Floats to Navigate Both Land and Water

DESIGNED to ford streams and rivers on a 12,000 mile jaunt of exploration around the world, a new amphibian automobile has been constructed by Capt. Geoffrey Malin, British explorer, which floats by means of huge inflated bags attached to a special electron frame at the side.

This combination auto and ferry boat is driven by means of paddles attached to the rear wheels, and is so arranged that the water can in no way damage the motor. Before taking to the water the floats are attached to the frame and pumped up, appearing like huge sausages, as shown in the photo above.

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“Poor Man’s” Yacht

This floating dream-home will allow you to cruise the river in millionaire style.

By Rudy Arnold

HAVE YOU ever dreamed of cruising down the river in your own private yacht? If you have, now is the time to do it and enjoy the plushness of a modern dream-home complete with front and back yard.

Wesley H. Dyer’s “Dumbo” has made a low-cost family yacht a practical reality for the water-loving landlubber. Dyer, president of the Metal Products Company of Nashville, Tenn., named his original family yacht, shown on these pages, after Walt Disney’s flying elephant because his novel craft was big but surprisingly agile for its size.

In recent years the forming of numerous lakes in Tennessee and Kentucky—like the Kentucky Lake, largest man-made body of water in America— by the building of large dams stirred up a lot of excitement about family boats in the area. Dyer heard people talking about big, comfortable boats that had all the space and accommodations of a home, as well as absolute safety.

The more conservative citizens of Nashville laughed when they heard that Dyer was going to take the plunge and build land-locked boats. They chalked off his idea as a silly delusion. Besides, they said, it would take a millionaire’s income to afford a dream boat capable of transporting an entire family in such handsome style for a holiday week-end or the summer.

Dyer set out to see if he couldn’t make a real houseboat that would give the new lake dwellers exactly what they wanted. He recalled that he had made special pontoons for many military uses during World War II. He talked to his chief engineer, Charlie Mager, about designing an inexpensive but spacious yacht with an auto trailer as the cabin.

The two men decided the best way to build the hull was to put it together in pontoon sections so that the family yacht could be constructed to fit the size of the family pocketbook. It would take eight sections bolted together, each holding three 55-gallon oil drums, to make a 16×24-foot hull able to float a 16-foot housetrailer.

If you supply your own oil drums, each section would cost $45. With $35 for deck lumber this would make the basic boat cost only $395. The same layout with special pontoons supplied would cost $60 per section. Add to this the $35 for the deck lumber and you get a total of $515 for this unique craft.

For Dyer’s original experimental Dumbo he* used 19 pontoon sections bolted together to form a barge 15 feet wide and 40 feet long on which he placed a 23-foot Mid-State housetrailer.

Each pontoon section has an angle member on either side of the bottom and channel members on both sides of the top. These members are bolted to three steel pontoons 25^x42 inches long and 15 inches deep. Together with the angle frame at each end they form a pontoon section 3 feet, 6 inches wide by 8 feet long and 18 inches deep. Each section supports 100 pounds for each inch of submersion. The entire unit will support 1,900 pounds for every inch of water it draws.

Dyer made up the steel pontoons in these sections from 18-gauge cold-rolled steel. He then had the metal rustproofed with a zinc phosphate coating inside and out. They were then tested with two pounds of air pressure to check against possible leaks and sprayed with an oil mist on the inside. For further anti-corrosion treatment he had all parts painted with Navy specification zinc chromate primer. The bolts are all cadmium plated.

On the forward end Dumbo has a false bow which is not essential to the boat. For the power plant there are motor mounts for two outboards at the stern. Instead of a rudder, the mounts are set near the sides of the vessel. By controlling the engine speeds of each motor Dyer can steer his craft from the flying bridge with greater flexibility than a rudder-guided motorboat and can turn his ship around in almost its own length at any running speed—an impossible stunt for a conventional yacht.

The Dumbo’s skipper can sail the housetrailer from the flying bridge. Once the outboards are firing, you can refuel the family yacht under way without stopping from two five-gallon tanks hung under the flying bridge.

A storage battery powers the navigation lights. Under the flying bridge on the deck is the trailer’s gasoline-powered generating plant for interior and running lights and for powering the water pressure unit for the modern kitchen and shower bathroom.

In its trial run up the Cumberland River through Tennessee and Kentucky into the Ohio River, Dyer deliberately navigated close to giant tugs to test the structural rigidity and seaworthiness. The Dumbo rode the waves like a duck on a midsummer millpond. Strong winds had very little effect on the yacht’s handling. On the maiden voyage Dumbo covered 271 miles from Nashville to Paris Landing on Kentucky Lake in 71 hours.

Dyer recently discontinued the original Dumbo for an improved version he devised with an all-steel hull with four watertight compartments 13 feet wide, 46 feet long and 30 inches deep.

He has already had the last laugh on those who scoffed at his idea and the boating fraternity got their dream—at a price that they could afford. •

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Mi’s “Flying Saucer” Cruiser

This 21 “foot dream boat cruises at 50 mph with its triple 25-hp outboard motors and will carry four people comfortably on a sea-going vacation.

By David Lockhart

HAVE the biological processes of mating and multiplying forced you to give up that fast* outboard hydroplane of your palmier days for a slow family cruiser? Well, the Flying Saucer is one cruiser that can trim the pants off your old hydroplane—even loaded up to here with a wife and two youngsters—and bring back the thrills of your misspent youth.

This 21-foot Saucer cruises at 50 mph, accommodates four people and includes galley and restroom facilities. She can rack up a better average speed on a day’s run than the family car—weather permitting—and take you from New York to Florida, for instance, in three days.

As the primary purpose in developing the Saucer was to come up with a really fast, good-looking outboard cruiser, triple 25-hp outboard motors and hydrofoils seemed like the answer.

However, it is practically impossible to design a craft with the usual foil equipment that doesn’t look like something you’d beat to death with a stick. Instead, longitudinal foils or skis of the type used successfully under the new jet seaplanes were chosen, being simpler, stronger and easier to build into the hull.

The Saucer is of molded construction and the central bridge portion of the hull is somewhat reminiscent of the sea sled. The bow is blunt and tunnels down and back to a flat bottom. As she gains speed, her central portion leaves the water and her bow, acting as a funnel, forces the airstream under the hull with the resulting venturi effect, helping to raise the craft higher on her skis. The outer edges of the ski pontoons are beveled into non-trip chines and both skis are equipped with fins.

Although she is a hydrofoil craft, you might call her a catamaran—and so she is. But then, you might also call any planing catamaran a hydrofoil. However, she is no more catamaran than any of the current “three point” racing hulls that plane on twin sponsons at high speed.

A boat as fast as the Flying Saucer should look fast too, so by moving the galley unit into the cockpit, it was possible to keep the silhouette low and rakish. Most outboard cruisers look like seagoing greenhouses in their determination to give you worlds of cabin headroom only necessary because of the galley.

This anti-social arrangement that banishes the little woman from the sun and air to get you up a meal, is also inhumane, especially if she is subject to that queasy feeling at sea. Beside that, there is a sporty element of risk involved in sending anyone into a space somewhat smaller than a piano crate to build a fire with little or no escape faculties behind her—unless, of course, you prefer your wife well-done.

Flying Saucer’s styling is simple and streamlined. Her rounded foredeck is uncluttered except for a bow chock, grab rails and a streamlined air scoop unit.

This chrome unit is a grille, screening a sexed-up version of a waterproof ventilator. A ring in the grille design leads the anchor hawser into the rope locker below. Running lights flank the grille and the streamlined fairing behind the air scoop unit is actually a hatch cover with a deadlight to brighten up things below.

Although you can get forward through the forehatch, you can get there more readily along the rubbing strake that runs the length of the boat and encircles the bow. Since the rounded contours of the foredeck make walking impossible—especially when wet—the chrome rubbing strake has a rubberized top surface wide enough for you to walk forward on, with grab rails to steady you along the way. The unusual width of the strake is also necessary to protect the chines, because of the excessive tumble-home of the top sides.

Under the foredeck are twin berths lying athwartship with hanging lockers beside them on the starboard side. Forward is the rope locker and plenty of room for general stowage in the round bow. The after portion of the Saucer is divided into fore and aft cockpits with a connecting passage way. The forward cockpit is sheltered by a wraparound windshield and a rigid top. The helmsman’s seat, wheel, controls and compass are on the port side. The seat on the starboard side has a toilet under it and a canvas curtain is provided for intro- verts. On the bulkhead in front of the seat is a dropleaf table.

The divider between the cockpits contains a refrigerator on one side of the passageway and a galley unit on the other, with a locker door hinged to swing down and form a working surface. The seat runs the width of the rear cockpit and converts into two thwartship berths.

The afterdeck, or engine hood, not only carries out the modern sweep of the Saucer’s styling, but also bounces engine noise back away from the boat. The hood hinges at the back for access from the cockpit. The center engine is equipped with a generator and a davit can be slipped into sockets to lift any engine into the cockpit or onto the dock.

A canvas canopy covers the after cockpit and with side curtains she can be completely enclosed.

A short mast is stepped on the rigid roof over the foreward cockpit. It is equipped with a masthead light and a flag halyard. With no one sitting in the rear seat, the roof can be undamped from the windshield and swung aft and down to become a rear cockpit cover, the mast becoming a stern staff. The practical reasons for this are rather obscure although it might be an ideal way to smother a squabble among mutinous small fry. In any case, it looks very sporty indeed and would enable the helmsman and friend “to get some sunshine.

There are many small fast boats on the Florida run these winters, with minimum cruising facilities, whose crews depend on sleeping ashore as often as possible en route, as though they were driving instead of boating. They spend nights in any of Florida’s many bayside motels and rubberneck or fish by day. The Saucer should be ideally suited to this form of North-South cruising. The longer day’s run, resulting from her high speed, gives a wider choice of ports that afford good accommodations convenient to the waterfront. And her sturdily molded construction assures a safe voyage wherever you want to travel with your good-looking Flying Saucer cruiser. •

Hand-Powered Motor Boat Gives Real Watersport Thrills

A DIMINUTIVE motor boat powered not by a motor but by a hand crank operated by the swimmer has been devised by a clever home craftsman to provide watersport thrills at the bathing beach. The propeller of this odd craft is geared to a pulley which is in turn belted to the hand crank on the front, as illustrated in the drawing above. Buoyancy of the craft is increased by use of small pontoons fitted between the boards running lengthwise of the craft.

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$5,000 Worth of Junk
IF you have a yen for something different like Robert A. Street of San Francisco, Calif., you can buy a bona-fide junk imported from Hong Kong for $5,000. The 30-ft. junks have some minor innovations like wells for the twin 18-hp outboards you need when there is no wind for the rust-colored sails. The boats are made of Borneo hardwood with one-inch thick decks. You get a charcoal hibachi-type stove with the craft and table service for six, including bowls, chopsticks and tea cups. You also get a proven 2,000-year-old design in these serene boats.

Undersea Sledge HUNTS Sunken GOLD

THE tedious and dangerous task of searching the ocean’s bottom for sunken ships laden with treasures is simplified by a diving sled perfected in Germany.

The floor of the ocean is literally strewn with ships which went down, taking with them to Davy Jones’ locker hundreds of millions of dollars in gold.

The heavy weights which a diver must carry in his boots to counteract the weight of his helmet and the buoyancy of his air-filled garment, make it extremely difficult for him to do much exploration. Shifting tides frequently move big ships which have settled to the bottom of the sea and consequently divers are often unable to locate the treasure.

The new diving sled is expected to overcome this. For in it, a diver can descend to the bottom of the sea and be towed for miles on the ocean’s floor.

The diver takes his seat in a manner much the same as in an airplane. A tug lakes up the tow and when ready to dive, the operator simply pushes forward on a joy stick, which is about the same as an airplane control. This in turn works the diving fins. The diver guides the right and left motion of his sled by use of rudder bars which in turn control the rudders.

The sled is easily controlled. It slips along the bottom of the sea until it encounters rocks or other obstacles, in which event the operator uses his control stick and zooms up over them, returning to the sea’s floor when all is clear.

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Tunnel-Hull Boat Won’t Roll

GAR Wood, the silver-haired king of speedboat racing, has designed the most stable boat in the world.

The no-roll Venturi is 188 feet long and 40 feet wide, and has twin hulls which slice through the waves instead of climbing over them as do conventional craft. Propellers are 4-1/2 feet in diameter and extend below the hull, increasing draft at the stern to about 8 feet when underway. At 26 knots the air rushing through the tunnel buoys up the ship so that she draws only 6 inches of water at the bow. This air cushion also acts as a shock-absorber for all up-and-down movements of the boat. Wood says, “We have sailed in seas so rough that 60 of our 188 feet have been out of water between wave crests, and have made full-rudder turns at top speed with waves 10 feet high and we didn’t heel over more than one or 2 degrees.”

The present model was originally designed as an AAF target vessel resembling a baby flat-top. It has four pancake Diesels totaling 4,800 horsepower, is flat-bottom with a gross weight of 120 tons. Engine rooms are located % of the way aft in each hull. Hulls are planked in %-inch 9-ply mahogany. Forty watertight bulkheads make it unsinkable.

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FAMILY YACHT FROM A LANDING CRAFT

He bought a LCVP from Navy surplus and from it fashioned this nifty “floating cottage.”

By Marylaird Wood

IT ALL began when Thomas L. Collins of Alameda, Calif., bought a LCVP from Navy surplus. The discarded landing craft sold for $24.00. It didn’t look much like a family boat but Tom thought it had possibilities.

Collins and his 14-year-old son, Tom, Jr., love the water. When they bought the LCVP they already owned a 30-foot sailboat but the problems of overnight accommodations, limited cabin space, and the fact that the ketch required a crew, took some of the fun from weekend sailing. What Tom and his son really wanted was a yacht they could take up to the Sacramento River for cruising and fishing. They wanted plenty of deck-space, convenient sleeping quarters and a trim cabin, at a price easy on the family budget. Although his only experience with boat-building was assembling a 14-foot Chris-Craft runabout from a kit, Tom bought the LCVP and set to work.

After almost two years of weekend labor, this amateur with the help of young Tom and a friend, Fred Steiner, has completed “The Bullfrog,,, a 36-foot cruiser that ranks in the luxury class.

It boasts a complete galley with a four-burner butane range with oven, a 30-gallon water heater with table-top counter, a sink of stainless steel, a 12-cubic foot icebox and 24 cubic feet of cupboard space. All work surfaces are Micarta-topped. All the ceilings are soundproofed with acoustical tile.

In the cabin, paneled with marine plywood, are a double-decker bunk and a built-in table with seating space for six. Collins has built ingenious cabinets on all available walls; he carefully engineered the storage space for clothing, fishing gear, water skiis, swimming equipment and food supplies. Other lockers store life-preservers, sleeping bags and deck chairs. There are, in all, 70 cubic feet of cupboards.

Space-saving, but convenient, are the cabin-bunks. Both measure 74 inches in length. The lower bunk is 36 inches wide; the upper is 28 inches. The upper bunk folds down against the wall to form a backrest for daytime seating. Both beds have foam rubber mattresses.

Next to the bunks, and separating the cabin from the galley, is a clothes closet that measures six feet ten inches high and three feet wide.

Collins had no blueprints for his cruiser. In fact, he says he built it “hit or miss.” However, he had some aid from a boat-expert friend, Jack Freitas, who also put a “cabin atop” an LCVP.

Collins says it took four months of weekend work just to prepare the hull. In fact, this stripping out is the most discouraging phase of the work, for instead of building up the handyman is tearing down. First Tom had to remove all the armor plate. Then it took weeks to clean up grease and Diesel fuel. All the old paint had to be removed, layer after layer of it.

Another arduous task was plugging up all the holes—almost 400 in all—left after the plate was taken off. To do this job, Collins bought plugs that were formerly used for plugging machine gun bullet holes. Each little cone had to be sawed flush, then sanded, then glued, then puttied, then sanded. Collins reiterates: “It was quite a job!”

The next step was to put up the rough framework of the cabin and stretch on the canvas. Protected by a base coat of paint and the painted canvas, the cabin was ready for winter weather.

Throughout the winter, Collins worked in the engine room. The engine is a 115-horsepower Chrysler Crown with V-drive, two-to-one reduction. Collins bought it used and rebuilt it in his basement. The engine was salvaged from a boat that had been sunk in San Francisco Bay.

These two phases of the work took almost a year. It was during the second year that Collins took up his saw, hammer and paint brush to tackle the interior finishing details.

The amateur boat-builder used paint gaily. He selected shades of rosy biege, brown and lime-green for his interiors. All the wood trim is either teak or mahogany. He had even added valances to the windows and a wall-to-wall shag rug on the floor of the all-yellow bath. For comfort—and a bit of decorating whimsy—he has installed a little antique pot-bellied stove in the cabin.

On deck, Collins has used pearl-gray and bright yellow canvas, teak seats, mahogany railings. The hatches are Fiberglas. Of course, he kept the winch and the landing ramp. This deck, which is six inches above water level when lowered, is now lacquered a mottled green and is an ideal spot for fishing, sunning, diving and water-ski take-offs. For more water-fun, Collins tows along his little outboard, “The Polliwog,” which he built from a kit.

The cruiser’s exterior is bright and gay, combining turquoise, coral and cream for colors on the hull. The speed is seven knots—just right for leisurely cruising. After, under the stern, is the 12-volt generating system, the engine, the air-compressor plant and automatic fire extinguisher.

Tom finished his cruiser in August, 1955—just in time to take advantage of the warm fall weather in the Sacramento River country. It was a big job and it took a long time but Tom says it’s all been fun. And he’s had the satisfaction of doing it himself.

Now that the job’s finished, you’d never guess the cruiser’s origin. It’s a yacht that is streamlined, convenient, and planned for sun-loafing and recreation. Actually, it is a floating summer cottage.

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DOWN GOES PICCARD!

Yea, he’ll go down four miles BUT… will he come back up?

THE African sun slants its dawn rays across the Gulf of Guinea. From the deck of a ship a huge crane swings out over the water. Slowly it descends and with scarcely a ripple deposits the amazing thing on the ocean’s face.

Inside the Thing a little man with wide metal-rimmed glasses orders crisply: “Cut the ropes,” and the world’s strangest submarine, its only contact severed, begins it’s descent into the world of endless night in the ocean’s depths. Through the portholes the light of day fades quickly. The zoologist, the little man’s only companion, peers outside, scribbles his observations. Time passes.

The free swimming submarine is now miles below the surface, in the heart of the black deep which two powerful arc lamps turn into a wonderland of marine fantasy. A dozen hours have elapsed. His studies complete, the professor presses a switch and.

But here this narrative must stop.

Up to this point we know what will happen when the little man, who is Professor Auguste Piccard of stratosphere fame, makes his fateful experiment.

But will his invention, upon which he has worked for years, rise to the surface? The professor himself does not know. The answer will be flashed to the world from the west coast of Africa on a February morning when the professor attempts to descend four miles into the ocean, far deeper than the present record of 3,028 feet held by Professor William Beebe.

The steel sphere in which Piccard will make his perilous journey into the unknown weighs ten tons, is nearly seven feet in diameter and has walls three and one-half inches thick. Nevertheless, without ballast, it is lighter than sea water, and therein lies the professor’s hopes.

Without the lighter-than-water twist, the bathyvessel would plummet into the sea and be lost forever. For there will be no cable, such as was used by Beebe, to haul it back to the surface. A cable would permit Piccard’s sphere to dangle no deeper than Beebe went… if he went further the weight of the cable would almost certainly cause it to snap.

Piccard hopes to rise again through applying the balloon principle to his queer submarine. To the sphere Piccard has attached a boat-shaped float filled with 494 cubic feet of*a light, buoyant oil. This takes the place of the hydrogen gas bag on a balloon. Below it, held tightly by electro-magnets, are large chunks or iron ballast. If a speedy ascent is demanded, these large pieces of iron can be released, but the professor has arranged for a slow, controlled method of rising. In a large copper funnel he has placed hundreds of pounds of iron filings. When current to the electromagnet is cut, the filings flow out at the rate of 60 pounds a minute.

There are two plastic portholes, six inches thick, on each side of the cabin. One is for photographic equipment which will automatically snap ten pictures per second, and the other will be used by the two men for observations. To pierce the gloom of the deep, Pic- card has attached 3,300 candlepower arc lights in,such a way as to produce streams of light which will cross the axis of the portholes perpendicularly. And he has provided two electrical motors which will move the sphere forward or backward. The speed will be low, about five inches per second.

Professor Piccard hopes to enrich immeasurably science’s presently limited knowledge of the ocean’s depths. Virtually all that man knows has been gleaned from the admittedly unsatisfactory soundings and net castings from surface ships. Divers have not been able to go deep enough or stay long enough. Beebe alone has ventured clown but, thinks Piccard, not far enough.

And so the eminent professor, who was the first to soar ten miles into the stratosphere, is poised to set another record, destination downward—round trip preferred. February will tell.

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BOAT RUNS ON SEA WATER

Free, unlimited electric power from the salty sea may soon replace gas, diesel engines in marine use.

EVERY so often someone comes up with an idea so simple and apparent that millions of Monday-morning quarterbacks promptly kick themselves and mutter “Now why didn’t I think of that?” Occasionally the idea is completely original. Usually, however, it is an old chestnut that has been kicked around until some bright lad finally dopes out a way to make it work. Ralph E. McCabe, designer and patentee of a practical, new salt water battery, does not claim to be the first to conceive the notion of extracting electric current from the ocean brine. He does claim to be the first to produce a seagoing wet cell that will pull enough juice from Davy Jones’ locker to run a boat and haul a payload!

McCabe’s battery is the result of no sudden stroke of genius. Since he first latched on to the basic idea back in 1948, he has slowly and painfully developed it to its present state of efficiency. During that time no less than 36 model boats have been built and tested at various points in the Atlantic, Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico. His latest models, Mamie and the Eighth Wonder of the World, are each 21 in. long with a 4-1/2 in. beam and they weigh 2-1/2 and 3 lbs. respectively. Each produces a little over one volt and up to three amperes of current, enough to drive them through the water at speeds up to five mph. This, as any boatman can tell you, is quite impressive for a working model of that size. In addition to the propulsion motors, some of the models are fitted with electric fights, foghorns, etc., all operated from the same basic power source.

The theory behind McCabe’s power plant is simply that of the familiar wet battery. The salt water of the sea acts as a conductor of the electric current flowing between a carbon-graphite positive plate and a nickel-zinc negative plate. This current operates a D. C. electric motor which, in turn, drives the boat’s propeller. The plates are corrugated or grooved to provide increased working area without increasing their overall dimensions.

Some of McCabe’s earlier models stalled after a short run due to the polarization or “balancing” of the ions. Eventually this difficulty was overcome and his latest boats have ticked along steadily until the motor brushes or armatures became dirty—a running time of five-and-a-half hours and a distance of some 20 miles. After cleaning they promptly took off again as strong as ever. With stand-by motors and facilities for automatic changeover, there is no reason why such a power plant should not run indefinitely.

McCabe has applied his boat-battery principles to a newly patented flashlight cell which he hopes to have on the market this year. Circular in section, it embodies a grooved carbon-graphite positive rod in the center surrounded by a cylindrical, zinc negative plate, deeply corrugated for increased area. He states that this new arrangement produces twice the amperage of the present cell of similar size and lasts twice as long.

The dry cell set-up, shown in the diagrammatic insert in the lead illustration, suggests an efficient wet battery arrangement suitable for large, seagoing freight and passenger ships. Encased in long tubes stretching fore and aft between the longitudinal bottom members of the conventional double hull, the batteries „ would occupy the space now used for fuel-oil tanks. Subsurface intakes on either side of the bow admit seawater to the battery tubes in a through-flow system that exhausts it from exit vents beneath the stern. The moving water, with its constant saline content, forms a perfect electrical conductor. The current thus generated is fed into banks of storage batteries from whence it can be drawn in an even, steady supply to operate the ship’s propulsive motors and auxiliaries. Such a power plant can be controlled directly from the bridge with no engine room telegraph ‘ necessary. The D.C. motors are instantly reversible under full loads, eliminating heavy reversing gear and increasing the vessel’s maneuverability.

Assembled in short, quickly detachable sections, the battery tubes are easily accessible for cleaning, repair or replacement of worn electrodes. Individual pumps and gate valves, fore and aft, permit any particular battery to be closed off and drained without affecting the others. With a few extra units built in for reserve power, the ship can proceed at normal cruising speed while repairs are completed. At the voyage’s end, plates can be readily pulled and replaced without the necessity of dry-docking the ship.

Similar sea-water battery arrangements can be adapted to small pleasure craft. As shown in the diagram atop page 86, they can be hung in sheet form on either side of a sailing yacht’s keel or spread horizontally across the flatter bottoms of motor cruisers. While the original investment in generating and storage batteries, motors and wiring would undoubtedly equal or exceed the cost of an internal combustion engine with its exhaust pipes, plumbing, tanks, etc., the elimination of dangerous and expensive fuels, engine vibration, noise and mechanical reversing gear would make it well worth while in the long run. It would certainly be far simpler, more easily controlled, lighter and more dependable than today’s cranky power plants.

McCabe feels that while he has developed his sea-water battery to a fairly efficient stage there is still plenty of room for improvement. He hopes, therefore, that some of you MI readers will pick up the ball and carry it a few yards further, “as the amateurs did in the radio field.” With this in mind he offers a free permit to use his improvements in advanced experimentation and will be glad to discuss plans and procedures with any interested amateur. His ideas, however, are patented and can not be used commercially without specific permission.

To encourage their continued development, McCabe plans a series of sea-water-powered boat races late this summer. He explains that initial battery experiments can easily be conducted in the family bathtub if two or three per cent of salt is added to the water.

The basic idea seems perfectly valid and you may get in on the development of a brand new form of marine propulsion—free electric power from the seven salty seas! •

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MI’s Wonderful Car-Boat

Turbine-powered cruiser of the future travels on either highway or waterway.

SOME DAY in the near future a long, sleek car with a bubble canopy will drive down to the water’s edge and then splash right in. Once afloat, its wheels will retract and the driver, shifting from gears to a jet thrust; will become coxswain of a speedy family cruiser.

This strange new vehicle will be the car-boat. Propelled by a gasoline turbine engine it will skim over highways at better than 90 mph and reach a top pace afloat of nearly 50 mph. The cabin will serve up air-conditioned comfort for its passengers and offer the riding ease of today’s luxury cars.

The arrival on the market of a practical, efficient car-boat now appears imminent. This split-personality cruiser has never quite made the grade to date because of a multitude of engineering problems. They began with the power plant and extended into transmission and methods of shifting power from wheels to prop. The need for good watertight shaft and grease seals complicated matters further.

Several companies are experimenting with land-water buggies and most major roadblocks now have been cleared away.

Bassons Industries of Yonkers, N.Y., a plastics concern, is concentrating on a smallish vehicle resembling its new postman’s-helper car.

Custom Hydrocraft of San Diego is working under the theory that the craft should be closely related to the car. The firm’s prototype Hydromobile has three retracting wheels, uses a standard auto engine and has done 85 mph on land and 30 on water.

In preparing its car-boat design MI has made the body molded Fiberglas for easy construction and repairs. Overall length is 20 ft. and the beam measures 6 ft. A dual-light system includes headlights for road driving and the red and green markers necessary for marine travel. Just aft the cabin is a radio aerial-flagstaff topped by a 360-degree white navigation light.

A scoop on the bow furnishes fresh air to both cabin and engine, which is accessible through a hatch. Basic marine navigation instruments are mounted on the dash along with automotive gauges. Watertight flaps close over the retracted wheels for streamlining and pumps evacuate the water inside.

The car-boat makes a luxury sports car or it can carry the family to the beach, take them for a spin on the bay and then return them home via highway. You can troll from its deck and you never need worry about a ferry. You have your own with you!—Robert G. Beason

GUARDING AGAINST “SUPER-ENTHUSIASTS”

One of the Armed Police Boats

These gasoline police launches, carrying machine guns and trained operators, now are scurrying back and forth in the waters of New York Harbor. Over one hundred veterans of the Spanish-American war-members of the force—are detailed to this duty, which is guarding the wharves and shipping against a repetition of the disastrous explosions and fires of the past few months.

The Fighting Deck of the Tug Fire Patrol

In addition to the police boats, the harbor is well protected by a squadron of these fire tugs, each carrying several high-pressure nozzles.

JET-STYLED model liner designed by German Dieter Jansen is powered by six miniature diesel engines. Ship can be radar guided and is said to travel 60 mph on calm water.

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Cheating TIME on the North Atlantic

Crossing the Atlantic in 60 hours is the feat claimed possible by Remy, inventor of an ocean hydroglider! Contrast this with methods of travel as developed in the last two hundred years.

SPEED! Speed!! Speed!! Ever since the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock—ever since the days when Virginia was first colonized, there has been the cry among shippers for greater speed in crossing the stormy North Atlantic!

Ships have grown in size and have varied greatly in type since Colonial days. From the ships of the Mayflower era with their “record breaking” trips of 80 days, down to present day liners and speedy aircraft, the one thought uppermost in the minds of men has been the reduction of time consumed in crossing the water barrier between the capitals of the old and New Worlds. At present shipping men are fired with the dreams of wealth which are sure to be showered upon the engineer who will furnish the best and most reliable way of crossing the Atlantic in what is termed “airplane time.”

So it is that one of these days natives of New York may be surprised to see, racing up the harbor past Governor’s Island, a queer looking hydro-glider. Flashing to the Battery at 70 knots an hour, it is possible that this strange craft will dock in the New World but 60 hours from Cherbourg. Behind the actual accomplishment of this feat will be the romantic story of shipping development—the story of scudding sailing ships, hard driving masters, the story of colossal liners with hearts of steel, and of patient, obscure thinkers who make these advances possible.

It is a far cry from the crude machinery of James Watt, who built the first marine steam engine for crossing the Atlantic, to the modern floating palaces which are shortly to be superseded in their four day schedule by faster means of carrying precious documents, gold, and letters of state between the two world centers. It is a still further cry from ships of Columbus’ time, of Hendrik Hudson’s time, to the new R-100, the British dirigible, and to \he Remy surface hydro-glider.

Behind all the development which has taken place in cutting hours and minutes from inter-continental schedules there has ever been the urgent cry for speed, more speed!

Before the days of the trans-Atlantic cable, there was a great premium paid to owners of ships that could bring to the new world freights of a perishable nature in the lowest elapsed time. News, bank clearings, and the intricate documents of international banking were carried on specially constructed ships which earned fortunes for their owners. It was such competition which forced the development of the first steamers, and drove the less efficient sails from the seas. Speed, more speed!

Why Speed?

Why? Because “there is money in it,” as the hard headed men of business say. They have learned that trans-Atlantic trade showers rich returns on the man who devises the quickest means for bringing the continents closer together.

It is true that the cable eased the burden of the ships somewhat, but after the cable had been laid and news was being rushed undersea with the speed of light, gold still had to be carried, international banking clearances were being held up pending arrival of money shipments at their destinations, and the formal processes of government were rendered all the more sluggish for each extra hour consumed in bringing m^il and express matter from one side to the other.

The building of such fast mail and passenger steamers as the Mauretania, the Olympic, Berengaria, and Leviathan seemed the ultimate in ocean transportation. When they were built, the airplane was a back lot toy. It was hardly worthy of even military recognition, and certainly not considered as a possible means for hopping the Atlantic with any degree of reliability.

Though airplanes have spanned the ocean, the fact remains that planes to- day have not developed to such an extent that they are reliable transports. Business will not yet trust valuable express matter and shipments of gold to airplanes. Though planes will cross the sea in 35 hours, they are not capable of carrying pay-loads reliably. For the present they are out of the picture as far as an improvement in trans-Oceanic express work is concerned.

But there is at present, actually built and ready for a trial trip, a queer design for a trans-oceanic speed boat which was constructed by Adrien Remy, a French engineer. Built on the banks of the Seine at the Saint-Ouens marine works, the odd craft was given her trials early this year at the little town of Javel. A proposed trip to prove her the ultimate type of trans-oceanic speed carrier is planned for the early winter.

Pontoon Boat Aims at 150-Mile Speed

Strange Craft Has Tractor Propeller Under Its Cockpit and Draws Inch of Water

SAFE water travel, at speeds that only the most daring race pilots now attempt, is brought within reach of everyone by a radically new type of water craft. When suitable motors are installed, the inventor expects it to shatter all records and attain 150 miles an hour. Despite its swiftness, the airplane-shaped boat demonstrated extraordinary stability in its first trials on Long Island Sound, N. Y., the other day. It amazed marine experts among the spectators by turning around in its own length, at high speed, without upsetting.

The inventor, Thomas A. E. Lake, son of Simon Lake, famous builder of submarines, predicts that his superspeedboat will banish risk and discomfort from two-mile-a-minute water travel. It skims the surface on three pontoons equipped with shock-absorbers drawing only an inch of water when in motion. The wide span of the forward pair of pontoons accounts for the craft’s stability. When the helmsman turns the steering wheel, the rear pontoon pivots to serve as a rudder. Meanwhile, through interlocking levers, the forward pontoons are automatically banked to aid in rounding a turn. A tractor-type propeller, beneath the center of the twenty-one-foot craft, pulls it along. The whole boat rotates about this center when a turn is made. A thirty-five horsepower outboard motor was used in the experimental trials, and installed just in front of the pilot’s seat so the hinged propeller shaft could be drawn up into the cockpit.

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HELIUM METHOD RAISES SUNKEN TREASURE

HUGE fortunes in gold and gems lying in the holds of sunken ships are no longer beyond recovery now that a record-breaking descent of 420 feet has proved salvaging sunken treasures safe and practicable.

Gold-laden ships, previously barricaded by unconquerable depths, were literally swept into shallow water by the record depth Max Nohl reached recently preparatory to salvage efforts on the S. S. Lusitania and Merida.

Nohl’s record descent was 108 feet deeper than the torpedoed Cunard liner Lusitania, down 12 miles off Old Head of Kinsale on the southern coast of Ireland. Since May 7, 1915, the Lusitania’s strongroom has hoarded $5,000,000 in gold bullion, packed in wooden chests, and the purser’s safe holds another million dollars in money shipments and jewelry. It is 201 feet deeper than the ill-fated Merida, sunk in collision 70 miles off the Virginia Capes in 1912, with $2,000,000 in gold and the former crown jewels of Mexico in her vault. These ships are located and marked with buoys, ready for divers equipped with helium breathing units to raise their treasures.

They have remained untouched so long because of the divers’ helplessness in steel armored suits and their inability to leave diving bells designed to withstand overwhelming water pressure. Fear of contracting bends, diving’s greatest terror, was also a deterrent.

Nohl has perfected and successfully proven a new type of suit with self-contained helium and oxygen breathing unit, which unfailingly immunizes divers against paralysis, or bends. Supported by equal amounts of pressure inside and out, the suit can withstand pressure at unlimited depths.

The suit is flexible, made of thirty layers of paper-thin rubber, and enables the diver to operate undersea searchlights and blow torches for cutting through steel blukheads which bar the way to ships’ strong-rooms. It allows full use of the arms and legs. Access to ship’s interiors is not hampered by helmet-to-surface air hoses which imperil the diver when fouled. Air lines to the newly-perfected aluminum helmet run only to export valves of the steel tanks of helium and oxygen strapped to the diver’s back.

Totally immunized against bends by breathing helium, divers can put in a full day’s work cutting or blasting open steel doors without being effected by water pressure. Thus the recovery of sunken gold may be expedited. Otherwise, it was previously a problem how divers could stay with the Lusitania long enough to get some work done.

The new helmet is fitted with a telephone so that the user can direct the operations of other divers on the job. With a switchboard on the surface ship, divers on the bottom and surface crews can communicate with each other. When entering wreckage, however, divers can disconnect telephone cables and make them fast below, to avoid fouling or damaging them.

Incorporation of helium in diving has dispelled old theories that the human body can withstand limited submarine pressure. It proved that man has infinite ability to descend far deeper than previously without ill-effects.

The cause of bends has long been known, but means of prevention is entirely new. The “bends” is literally the poison from fangs of great ocean depths that have defeated divers’ attempts to reach coveted fortunes.

In diving parlance, bends is the term for the often fatal paralysis and convulsions caused by breathing excessive amounts of nitrogen. Old methods, involving helmet-to-surface air hoses, require breathing compressed natural air pumped down by compressors. Stepping up the air pressure thus subjects the diver to breathing four to six times the normal amount of nitrogen. Atmospheric air contains 79.93 parts nitrogen.

The blood can cope with normal amounts of nitrogen entering it from the lungs, but not excess quantities forced down by compressed natural air. Consequently, the excess forms gas bubbles in the bloodstream. These retard the circulation, even check it entirely, and total or partial paralysis is the result. Hence bends.

The type of breathing gear used by Nohl avoids use of natural air, thus preventing all nitrogen from entering the lungs. Breathed instead is helium, a life-giving gas, pleasant to breath and odorless. To meet physical requirements, it is mixed with oxygen by the diver as he uses it.

Under pressure, helium is not only highly efficient but it does not escape through the lungs into the blood appreciably. In diving, nitrogen dopes the mind and body, while helium exhilarates like a tonic.

The two high-pressure steel tanks of the breathing gear, one for helium and the other for oxygen, each hold 2,000 pounds of pressure, and 25 cubic feet. This is sufficient to sustain a diver 23 hours.

Here’s how he utilizes the pressure he carries to offset water pressure. For every 100 feet the diver descends, he must resist 42 pounds lateral water pressure against every square inch of his suit. The suit’s area is roundly 3,000 square inches. Working on the Lusitania at 312 feet deep will subject the diver to 478,000 pounds of water pressure, or 136 pounds per square inch. It should prove still easier than the record-breaking depth which experienced 520,290 pounds of water pressure, or 176.4 pounds per square inch, at 420 feet.

In descending, to resist the increasing water pressure, the diver fills his suit with corresponding amounts of air pressure, by means of valves at his side. The descent is made gradually so that the body adjusts itself to the pressure. In the test dive, Nohl reached bottom 420 feet down in nine minutes, by which time 180 pounds per square inch were valved into his suit. At the same time, the same pressure was breathed to prevent crushing of the lungs.

As the water pressure decreases coming up, blasts of air are released by pushing an outlet valve on the helmet. In this way the air pressure within the suit is equalized with the lessening water pressure without. Otherwise the suit would inflate like a balloon and perhaps burst. The diver is constantly advised his depth by telephone. The pressure gauge before his face on the instrument panel of the helmet registers the air pressure.

Between the two opposing pressures at great depths Nohl’s suit of 1/2″ rubber is compressed to 1/8 inch. Interesting is the fact that divers breathing helium can return from the Lusitania’s depth almost immediately without fatiguing periods of decompression. Because the body decompresses, or adjusts itself to changing pressures, much faster with helium, the decompression time for 312 feet is less than one hour.

This compares with U. S. Navy decompression time tables, which require six hours for 300 foot descents with natural air. While it has none for 400 feet or more, it would presumably be eight hours. Natural air took no diver deeper than 306 feet, a previous record set in 1915 by Frank Crilley, a navy diver, who hooked hoisting cables to the sunken submarine F-4 on the bottom of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

To pierce the eternal darkness of undersea depths, specially designed submarine searchlights, with multiple 5,000-watt bulbs of heavy glass, are being developed to aid Nohl in his salvage work. Also are new types of acetylene blow torches designed for underwater efficiency. The torches will be equipped with high-pressure oxygen blowers which will hold back the water while acetylene flames cut through steel.

Preparatory to salvaging the Lusitania, Nohl and his crew will start operations on the Merida in May. A ship equipped with sand-sucking machinery will be employed to clear the mud that washed into the wreck. Then the way to the safe will be clear. How the treasure is to be recovered and lifted will be determined on the job. By August, Nohl plans to be across the Atlantic working on the Lusitania.

Revolutionizing the field of diving, helium-equipped diving suits may succeed in salvaging other treasure-laden ships on which complicated methods have failed. In the Klondike gold ship, Islander, sunk off Admiralty Island, near Juneau, Alaska, since she collided with an iceberg in 1901, lies $3,000,000 in gold dust nuggets. Attempts to drag the Islander ashore by lifting her with 40 cables suspended from two ships, and float her with the tide, were partially successful. Two thousand feet from shore in 190 feet of water, the Islander broke in two. The forward half, containing the valuable cargo, was again lost.

Untold millions in gold and silver are yet to be recovered from the sunken fleet of Spanish galleons in Vigo Bay, off the Spanish main. In 1702 the fleet of 17 pirate ships were returning from a three-year loot on high seas. Homeward bound they encountered reprisal-seeking British warships and anticipating defeat, the pirates scuttled eight of their fleet with a similiar treasure of gold that was recovered from the remaining nine before they sank.

With helium equipment, salvage expeditions at last have a fighting chance to regain the gold glittering on the ocean floor.

France Builds DIVING Plane Carrier

CAPABLE of carrying a fighting seaplane, a full complement of big guns, and a crew of 150 men, the most powerful submarine in the world was recently added to the equipment of the French navy. It is known as the Surcouf, and is in reality a light cruiser capable of traveling under water, since when submerged it has a greater displacement than a floating cruiser. The Surcouf is by far the most powerful submersible yet conceived, and represents France’s latest bid for sea power.

As depicted on this month’s cover of Modern Mechanics, the submarine carries its seaplane equipment in a water-tight tubular compartment on deck which is tightly closed when submerging. When emerging on the surface one end of the compartment is moved toward the stern of the sub on tracks built for that purpose, a seaplane is lifted to a catapult by a derrick and launched into the air, all within a space of a few moments. At the same time the planes are being launched, the sub’s war guns can be bombarding an objective while torpedoes are being launched at a distant battleship, giving the submersible tremendous destructive power.

Diesel engines drive the Surcouf at a speed of 18 knots per hour on the surface; electric motors develop a 10-mile speed submerged.

DESIGNS BARREL SHIP FOR USE AT SEA
To demonstrate the feasibility of his design for a high-speed ship that rolls over the water like a barrel, a marine engineer of Port Blakely, Wash., has constructed an electric-powered model that is reported to perform all the maneuvers of a conventional vessel. He proposes building full sized ocean vessels on a similar plan, with stationary decks for passengers and cargo inside the revolving, electrically driven shell. The project recalls that of another barrel ship inventor of an earlier day, who actually completed a 110-foot model of his steam-powered craft and piloted it 200 miles across Lake Ontario (P.S.M., Dec, ‘33, p. 26).

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The ATOMIC SHIP Takes Shape

by Richard K. Winslow

Condensed from Newsweek One fine morning in the spring of 1960 a gleaming white ship will glide from some American harbor out to sea. The ship’s rakish lines will be unmarred by any smokestacks. Her bridge will probably resemble the pilot’s bubble on some huge aircraft. Her passengers—nuclear scientists and marine engineers —will anxiously watch each dial aboard the ship to see if all is well.

America’s first atomic merchant ship will thus embark upon her first sea trials.

For years the shipping interests of the world had laughed down the idea of such a ship as a “showboat”— unable to compete, economically, with the conventional, oil-powered merchant marine.

Now they see the day—probably within the next decade—when the atom will operate ships in the black by (1) making them faster and (2) saving space for added cargo. The world’s first atomic ship claims neither of these things but, as a “floating laboratory,” she will demonstrate the future value of the seagoing atom in hard dollars and cents.

The momentous experiment is fast taking form in several scattered spots —in a naval architect’s austere office in New York; in a shiny new reactor plant near Lynchburg, Va.; and in a half dozen Washington offices of the Atomic Energy Commission and the Maritime Administration, obstetricians jointly in charge of the A-ship’s birth.

Though details of the ship’s shape may change at any point until the shipyard contract is let, her main characteristics are already pretty well decided. She will be a combination cargo-passenger vessel, 590 feet in length, and capable of cruising at a tidy, if not record-breaking, 21 knots. She will carry about 100 passengers, a crew of 125, and her six holds will pack 10,000 tons of dry cargo (about what a Liberty ship now carries).

Contrary to the popular myth that such a ship could be sent around the world on a spoonful of uranium, the atomic merchantman will have a sizable fuel charge, consisting of 138 steel-clad uranium fuel rods. This will send her around the world about ten times in the two and a half years before replenishment is needed.

Her designers are particularly proud that her atomic engine, which is a cousin to the “pressurized water” reactor that has pushed the Nautilus 80,000 miles so far, will be considerably “advanced,” i.e., it should be far cheaper to operate, and as safe as the Nautilus’s reactor.

There will be nothing especially flossy about the A-ship—a smallish swimming pool, a modest lounge, average accommodations for a passenger-cargo ship of her size. For curbing seasickness, she will have stabilizing fins to diminish the ship’s roll. As an aid to visiting scientists and engineers, the engine room will be glass paneled. There will be closed-circuit TV for technical demonstrations; there may be an auditorium for public atomic lectures.

If all goes well, the A-ship’s keel will be laid next spring. The launching should follow a year later. From the spring of 1959 to early 1960, the atomic-power plant will be installed and checked out.

Then, according to Maritime Administrator Clarence G. Morse, the vessel will have “three lives”: (1) tests and trials in U.S. waters, (2) a worldwide tour with demonstrations for other nations, (3) permanent charter to a U.S. operator for regular commercial (though probably not profitable) service.

Although laymen will not be able to book passage for three to five years after the first sea trial, most of the larger operators already are jockeying for the honor of becoming the world’s first atomic transporters.

The unnerving task of meeting these deadlines has fallen to a 35-year-old AEC engineer, Richard P. Godwin. Godwin masterminds en expanding force of experts, which already numbers some 250 designers, draftsmen, metallurgists, safety experts, and lawyers, who work under the added tension of not having, as the Navy atomic design people do, a land-based prototype reactor on which to work out the kinks beforehand.

Through Godwin’s two offices (one AEC, one Maritime) files an endless procession. A recent sampling of visitors, and their problems: A naval architect who offered some last-minute “thinking” on how swept-back the A-ship’s radar mast should be. (The final tilt is yet to be decided.) A lawyer from an oil company who wanted to know how much government help could be expected if they built their own atomic tanker. (They will receive full technical help; financial help is up in the air.) Officials from the Public Health Service and the Coast Guard who wanted to start drawing up safety rules for atomic ships. (They were invited to send some of their engineers to work along with the atom ship’s shielding designers.) An oceanographer who reported on how quickly the tides in certain harbors could be expected to flush out any leaked radioactivity. (New York Harbor, for example, would drain clean in a week or ten days.) Last, but not least, a staff member of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy who wanted to see how the development was progressing. (So far, so good.) Just two years ago, such a commotion was inconceivable. Nuclear propulsion for the Navy, which wants speed and endurance at any price—yes. But nuclear propulsion for merchant ships? Bankruptcy!

What got this timid thinking off the beach was President Eisenhower’s “peace ship” proposal, first broached in April, 1955.

Last year, Louis S. Rothschild, Under-Secretary of Commerce and former Maritime Administrator, proposed a laboratory ship — convertible, when scientists finished studying it, into commercial operations. . Last summer, the vessel acquired a budget of $42.5 million divided up as follows: $21 million for developing and building the reactor, boilers, turbines, and the main shielding; $18 million for the ship itself, shore facilities such as a fuel-changing dock, and the training of atomic crews. The remaining $3.5 million will buy uranium from the AEC— but there will be a $2-million rebate when the old fuel core needs replacement.

Last October 15, a White House announcement officially sent the project down the ways.

One paramount problem, that of atomic safety, hovers over the A-ship planners. What a single oceangoing reactor could do at the bottom of a harbor is appalling. Not long ago Dr. Rover Revelle, the director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, LaJolla, Calif., estimated that if a fairly large reactor were rammed and sunk in a harbor 8 miles long, 3 miles wide, and 50 feet deep, it would subject a fisherman in a row-boat anywhere in the harbor to nearly twice as much radiation in a day as AEC workers are allowed in a week.

“Dock pilings, ship bottoms, and other structures covered with fouling organisms would accumulate a much higher level of radioactivity,” he added ominously.

Godwin declares such anlyses are unduly scary. They assume that collisions will always be direct hits on engine rooms, that every safety device will fail, and that in defiance of all the laws of chemistry the metallic fuel elements will dissolve like a pill in a cup of water. Looking at all angles, he and his shielding specialists are even considering adding wood to the conventional shielding layers of lead, concrete, plastics, and steel. The wood would provide a puncture-proof resilience in a collision.

Passengers, Godwin promises, will be as safe as when riding on conventional liners. “Because we don’t carry great quantities of flammable fuel oil, on our ship there’s less chance of an explosion,” he points out. “Besides, if a passenger chose to sit for a year in the hottest part of the ship open to him—in the hold directly in front of the reactor—he would get but one-tenth of a roentgen.” (This is roughly the amount of radiation caused by the luminous dial on a wrist watch.) The only ticklish time on the A-ship will be during refueling (which, for convenience, may take place annually, coinciding with the ship’s routine maintenance). The spent fuel rods will probably be pulled-by a crane up into a lead coffin, then dumped into a shore-based pool for two or three weeks until cool enough to be shipped off to a reprocessing plant.

Radioactive sludge that will accumulate in the reactor’s plumbing will have to be removed carefully from filter traps once each trip. “It will be no more of a problem,” Godwin figures, “than handling radioisotopes around a hospital.”

Godwin has an engineer’s reluctance to predict how soon the atom will commandeer the engine rooms of the U.S. merchant marine. But he has a clear concept of the probable sequence of events.

“The largest tankers will be first to find A-power attractive, then the smaller oil carriers,” he expects. “The ironic situation of oil being moved by a competing fuel is simple common sense.”

Oil is a concentrated cargo, pumped quickly on and off a ship. Thus tankers can spend 85 to 90 percent of their time at sea (in contrast to 50 percent for freighters). Nevertheless, they are fuel hogs. On the long round trip to the Persian Gulf, for example, present-day tankers may burn 17 percent of their pay-load in transit.

Next on Godwin’s atomic-propulsion list: the giant ore carriers. Then, he thinks, atomic engines might power some fast luxury liners. Other experts do not necessarily agree. They point out that faster ships need more than an increase in power. Their hulls must be lengthened too, to lessen the drag of bow waves and other turbulences on the ocean surface.

Godwin’s crew is bursting to get new projects under way. “We’ll start plans for a second atomic ship this year,” he said. “In fact, we have some nuclear hardware for a tanker under development. By 1959, the U. S. should be designing a third and fourth atomic ship.”

By then, the reactor people may have come up with seagoing power plants that will make the Nautilus-type reactor look quaint. One of the promising types is the gas-cooled reactor, which makes possible much smaller engines, dispensing with bulky boilers and heat exchangers.

Instead of steam, a hot gas—nitrogen, for instance—flowing in closed coils around the reactor would use the heat it picks up to spin a turbine, somewhat in the manner of a turboprop airplane. The idea has a special appeal because gas turbines (oil-fired rather than atomic) are this year getting major trials in converted Liberty ships.

Though the U. S. is acknowledged to be off to a flying start in atomic propulsion, other big maritime nations are also in the race.

Before the end of 1960, Britain may have launched an atomic supertanker, perhaps as large as 80,000 tons deadweight. This behemoth, which would dwarf the U.S.’s 10,000-ton A-ship, would carry enough oil to fill 23 miles of tank cars.

Russia’s plans for nautical atomic energy are puzzling. The Red press has panned the Nautilus as unwieldy and has talked of atomic merchantmen only at the most elementary level. Their main atomic contender is an icebreaker, the Lenin, that has been under construction in a Leningrad shipyard for the last 18 months. The 440-foot ship is designed to make 18 knots in open water.

In contrast to the U. S. merchantman, which will use reactor heat to drive a turbine directly, the Russian ship will first produce atomic electricity which will then power an electric motor. The icebreaker is supposed to be launched before 1961.

Other shipbuilding nations, particularly Sweden, West Germany, and Japan, are all displaying an avid atomic interest, even though they will probably have to buy their first generation of atomic engines from the U. S. or Britain.

In the lead are the Swedes who have just signed a contract to deliver a 65,000-ton tanker by 1963. Two more A-ships will be scheduled shortly, and the Swedes think they can build a profitable 100,000-ton, 30-knot atomic supertanker within ten years.

In moments of elation, some atomic-propulsion advocates project their optimism even farther. They dream of atomic-powered hydrofoils, those ships that (theoretically) would ride in the air just above the surface of the sea, supported by a huge underwater wing — or they contemplate underwater cargo ships,. monster submarines that shuttle beneath the surface of the ocean at fantastic speeds.

Engineers who recognize the towering difficulties sputter at such “Sunday supplement” designs. “Hydrofoils (for big ships),” says Rear Adm. E. L. Cochrane, former Maritime Administrator, “would work along the boundary of two media (air and water) receiving the benefits of neither and participating in the disadvantages of both.”

The stock of cargo-carrying subs is a bit higher. They might carry a pumpable cargo — oil or perhaps grain—at 67 or 70 knots with a future atomic engine. Most of the world’s harbors would have to be deepened to admit such leviathans, but offshore pumping stations might be an ultimate solution.

“When we get some really advanced power plants,” Godwin, the A-ship’s shepherd, likes to say, “we can delve into these exotic hulls. Until then we haven’t time to worry about how Buck Rogers might do it.”

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FLOATING Playgrounds Keep Ocean Travelers Fit

No longer must bored travelers pace the pitching decks or remain curled up in a chair while the tedious hours of the ocean voyage slip slowly by. Every deck on the modern liner is now a fully equipped playground, designed to keep the traveler fit and contented.

PERHAPS the most potent reason for the increasing’ popularity of sea-travel is the extraordinary lengths to which the larger steamship lines have gone to keep the passengers amused and contented.

The very latest addition to the sea-going playground is the regulation tennis court, completely enclosed with wire netting, which has recently been installed on the boat deck of the Hamburg-American liner New York. When not being used for the racket game, the court makes an excellent quoits court, the net stretched waist high adding a handicap which calls for more skill than the ordinary deck quoits.

The smooth hard-wood surfaces of the promenade deck are now being fenced off for bowling and duck pins, while the boat deck is equipped with areas for quoits and shuffle-board. Below decks may be found luxurious swimming pools.

New Lifeboat Resembles Casket
ABOUT the strangest, and perhaps the most ominous craft yet to make its appearance in marine circles is a life saving boat that resembles a casket. Its unusual appearance, however, does not hinder its effectiveness as a means of rescuing and keeping shipwreck victims safely afloat, for the boat can neither capsize nor sink. It is buoyed up by pontoons on either side, and will remain afloat in the heaviest of seas.
For picking up swimmers from the water after a shipwreck, a row of hand rails are affixed to the side, which can be grasped when the boat comes close.

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An OCEAN LINER Built Like a Zeppelin

Following the streamline form of a Zeppelin, a new ocean liner, designed by a German inventor, gives promise of reducing by one-half the time required for an ocean crossing.

WILL the ocean liner of the future take advantage of the lessons learned by airship engineers and pattern its design after the streamlined Graf Zeppelin, Los Angeles, R-100, and other famous lighter-than-air craft? That such is the present tendency is indicated by the contemplated ship shown in the artist’s drawing above, and depicted on this month’s cover of Modern Mechanics and Inventions. It is the invention of H. Ellinghausen, of Bremen, Germany, who in experiments with this type of design has developed speeds well in excess of 60 miles an hour.

Advantages of such a ship are obvious. Streamline design adds to the speed without requiring increase in power. The broad, rounded design of the ship allows interior accommodations to be laid out to the best advantage, without the necessity for cramped staterooms as on the ordinary vessel. Placing the air drive propellers outside the hull enables the motors to be taken care of in a comparatively small space.

There is no danger of such a ship rolling over in a heavy sea, owing to the broad V-bottom. Placing steps in the bottom, following the practice of speedboat designers, adds to the speed of the craft. Promenade decks are built into the side of the ship so that the wind created by the boat’s own speed will not aNnoy the passengers. Tail controls similar to those on an airplane are used to keep the ship on its course, but an under-water rudder can also be added to get quicker response in emergencies.

A special light metal which is the invention of Mr. Ellinghausen will be used when the ship gets under construction. He calls this metal ultralumin, and it differs from the more familiar duralumin in that it is an alloy of copper and manganese instead of magnesium and nickel. Ultralumin is corrosion proof—an important quality in a seagoing craft—and it also has easier working qualities.

The record for an Atlantic crossing is now held by the German liner Bremen, It is notable that the Bremen is the first liner whose above-water parts have been consistently streamlined. Smokestacks, masts, and other exposed objects are streamlined to such good effect that it was almost inevitable she should capture the Atlantic speed record. Speed gained by streamlining is, as the saying goes, pure velvet. Adding more power to an existing design is an old way of increasing speed —at a considerable expense for fuel.

Woman Is Expert Deep Sea Diver
CLAIMING the distinction of being the only woman deep sea diver in the world, Mrs. Winifred Height, of Wilmington, California, recently brought to the surface the barrel of a brass cannon that experts state belongs to the period of early Spanish occupation of California. Mrs. Height learned the occupation from her husband, who has gained fame as an under-water worker.

Motorboating in a Washtub
THE ancient and lowly washtub, long the symbol of feminine drudgery, recently proved its conservatism in England when efforts were made to modernize it by adding an outboard motor and converting it into a sea-going craft. The tub promptly rejected the idea and submerged.