SPIRAL ROLLERS DRIVE ODD SPEED BOAT
CLEAVING the water at express-train speed, a propellerless power boat of new design may shatter existing speed marks if it fulfills the hopes of its West Easton, Pa., inventor. Its slim hull rides upon three buoyant, barrel-shaped rollers, of which the forward two are connected to the power plant and revolve at high speed.
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That’s a cute boat but, do sandals really make your feet bigger?
Youthful Skipper Hits Off 10 m.p.h. Clip on “Aquacar”
A TWIN-PONTOON “aquacar” has solved all navigation problems for young Billy Barrud, of Lake Arrowhead, Calif. Eight paddles on each side wheel enable him to back up or speed ahead, merely by turning the handles in the direction he desires to go. Each pontoon is six feet long, canvas covered. Other parts are built from scrap wood. The boat is no slow poke, for it can hit off a neat clip of 10 miles per hour. $4 was the total cost of the contraption.
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Why Women’s Shoes Are Bigger
WOMEN’S shoes must be wider and differently shaped this winter because so many women wore sandals through the summer, is the prediction of a New York foot specialist. This summer’s styles have marked what is probably the closest to bare feet that shoes can come, allowing an unprecedented degree of freedom to the foot.|
Piccard’s Submarine Balloon
A famous explorer of the stratosphere designs a remarkable undersea craft for a journey to ocean depths never before reached by man.
By Charles Wright, Aneta News Agency Correspondent
BRUSSELS, Belgium-(Special to Popular Science Monthly). By applying the lifting principle of a balloon to a diving chamber, Prof. Auguste Piccard, pioneer explorer of the stratosphere, has found a way to descend to greater depths of the ocean than man has ever reached before. He has embodied his idea in a submarine craft of extraordinary design, able to navigate more than two miles beneath the waves. As this is written, he and his Belgian assistant, Prof. Max Cosyns, of Brussels University, are preparing to entrust their lives to the invention in the Gulf of Guinea, off the Ivory Coast of Africa.
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I wonder if he ever built that thing.
Veteran Dares Atlantic In Barrel Boat
A SEA-GOING barrel—it sounds fantastic, but not to Ernest Biegazski, Buffalo, N. Y., war veteran, who plans to use just such a vessel to cross the Atlantic. The daring trip, according to his calculations, will not take more than 40 days. The oak barrel, which will comprise the hull of the vessel, will be nine feet long with a diameter of six feet, eight inches. A 600-pound keel will furnish the ballast. A hollow mast, 20 feet high, will carry the sail, a simple rig of approximately 300 square feet. A glass-enclosed hatch which will provide exit to the narrow deck. During stormy weather he will reef his sail, seal the hatch, and bob about safe as a cork.
Though the crossing is expected to take 40 days, Biegazski is taking food for sixty.
“SEA SLUG” Liner Floats on WORM DRIVE
COMBINING speed and comfort with modern streamline design, the “sea slug” liner employs an unusual means of propulsion. Instead of the screw propeller drive used on ocean ships, this craft is driven by a series of worm screw impellers.
These impellers also eliminate the common hull design. The center portion of the ship is hollowed out for the series of four worm screws. The sides of the hull float and with the hollow screws provide buoyancy for the liner. As speed of the ship increases, the hull rises, lowering its resistance in the water.
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While the idea of a cross country cruise ship was pretty far fetched, the technology described seems to work. The Rolligon corporation is actually a going concern that makes big vehicles with really big rolligons.
CROSS-COUNTRY CRUISE SHIP
You’ll be riding on air — squashy bags of it that roll happily over every obstacle.
By Frank Tinsley
THE crazy, mixed-up amphibious train shown on this page, half bulldozer, half river boat and all Tom Swift, is only an adaptation of a vehicle now being operated experimentally by the Army.
The rolligon wagon rolls slowly but implacably on a number of limp blimps—sausage-like air bags without much air in them. These saggy bladders are a vast improvement over the wheel when it comes to moving things over sand, muck, rocks and rubble. For several years the boating public has been using low-pressure rollers for moving boats on every type of ground.
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The Mysterious Submarine
By F. D. BURKE
THE interesting little toy described in this article will, when placed in water, automatically dive and come to the surface again, repeating this performance, on an average, once a minute over a long period of time. It not only makes a very good toy for a boy but can be used also for advertising purposes. Placed in a glass tank and displayed in a show window, its actions will attract the attention and interest of passers-by, who will stop to wonder how it operates.
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