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NEW PRODUCTS

1. New. five-sectional, rear-view mirror permits 160° view behind, including both sides.

2. Molded from tough plastic, these doorknobs snap on shaft, are held in place by a small spring lock.

3. Antique pine finishing kit consists of stain and wood sealer in pint quantities, brush. 1/2-lb. can of wax and instructions.

4. Two-way radio operates over citizen’s radio band, has 10-mile range, uses 115V AC or 6V DC. License is easily acquired.

5. Styrene plastic relief maps of different world areas are shaped to true curvature of earth, have flat backs, 18-in. diameter.

6. Installed inside, this instrument lets you read indoor and outdoor temperatures at once.

7. These swivel-topped screwdrivers are designed to ease work, prevent blistered palms.

8. Ranging from can opener to fish scaler, there are eleven ways to use the Angler’s Pal.

9. The Twinkle Lamp is designed for festive occasions or decorative use, operates off transformers which reduce 120-volt A.C. to 6.3 volts. It is intended for use in string sets.

10. Framing anchors, made of 18 ga. galvanized steel, are intended to eliminate toenailing and splitting, increase rigidity.

11. Handyfreeze electric ice cream freezer has four-guart capacity, operates on A.C. only. Oak bucket is trimmed with copper.

Oh,  and Barnum didn’t say “There’s a sucker born every minute”.  That was actually a quote from a competitor after Barnum created his own Cardiff Giant.

If you’ve never actually listened to the Mercury Theater broadcast of War of the Worlds you can stream it or download it at the Internet Archive

The saga of the  bogus John Wilkes Booth mummy (actually a chap named David George) is told in a story of 7 parts here.

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THESE HOAXES SHOCKED THE WORLD

By West Peterson

THE awful calamity of ferocious beasts hunting human prey in the streets of New York after breaking out of the Central Park Zoo panicked the entire city one gloomy Monday morning back in November, 1874. The highly esteemed New York Herald revealed the grim details of the “catastrophe” in the full-page story you see reproduced here.

“Another Sunday of horror has been added to those already memorable in our city annals,” the Herald announced in a dramatic report on the Zoo break. “. . . We have a list of forty-nine killed, of which only twenty- seven bodies have been identified, and it is much to be feared that this large total of fatalities will be much increased with the return of daylight. The list of multilated, trampled and injured in various ways must reach nearly 200 persons . . . Twelve of the large carnivorous beasts are still at large, their lurking places not being known. . . .”

“All citizens, except members of the National Guard,” the Mayor warned in a “state-of-siege” proclamation, “are enjoined to keep within their houses or residences until the wild animals now at large are captured or killed.”

“There was evidently a fight over the body of Anderson (the keeper whose unfortunate poke at the rhinoceros had set off all the trouble),” an eyewitness of the catastrophe reported. “But I could see nothing more than a mingling, gleaming mass, whence arose the most awful cries. Nearer to me, where (Keeper) Hyland lay, the lioness, the panther, the puma, and presently the Bengal tiger, were rolling over and over, striking at each other with their mighty paws. The lioness tore the skin off the puma’s flank with one blow. The coming of the tiger was something terrible. I shall never forget the awful, splendid look of him as he landed with a spring in the thick of them. I could not move. It was too awful for anything. Oddly enough, while the fight was going on, … I could not help looking at Lincoln, the lion, who was standing behind them, pawing and roaring and lashing his sides with his tail; every muscle in uneasy tension. All of a sudden I had a flash.

” ‘By God, he’s looking at me!’ I said to myself. I saw him crouch. I turned and ran. . . .

“I saw a young man fall from a blow of the awful paw, and another crushed to earth beneath the beast’s weight. . . .”

Such incidents were typical of the “carnival of death” that was sweeping through the city, according to the Herald. A vast hunt—by armed men for the escaped animals and by the prowling beasts for the escaping victims—was stirring up dramatic conflicts not only in Central Park and on Broadway and Fifth Avenue but even inside cathedrals and churches. A buffalo bowled over Earl Roseberry’s carriage in front of the Brevoort Hotel, then rammed into another one. A savage brute, believed to have been a tiger, leaped on board a departing ferryboat at the foot of 23rd Street and sent horses, wagons and passengers plunging overboard.

“It would be impossible at this late hour to describe the numberless scenes of dismay and disaster,” the report went on. “The hospitals are full of wounded … A sentiment of horror pervades the community.”

Life in New York came to an abrupt end as citizens bolted for safety after the Herald broke the “news” about wild animals stalking through the streets. Gotham’s residents were afraid to venture forth to work and hid behind barricaded doors and furniture-barred windows.

It would have been just another morning-after-Sunday Monday if startled readers had held on to their heads till they got down to the final paragraph of the sensational story:

“THE MORAL OF THE WHOLE.”

“Of course the entire story given above is a pure fabrication. Not one word of it is true. Not a single act or incident described has taken place. It is a huge hoax, a wild romance, or whatever other epithet of utter untrustworthiness our readers may care to apply to it. It is simply a fancy picture which crowded upon the mind of the writer a few days ago while he was gazing through the iron bars of the cages of the wild animals in the menagerie at Central Park. Yet as each of its horrid but perfectly natural sequences impressed themselves upon his mind, the question presented itself, How is New York prepared to meet such a catastrophe? How easily could it occur any day of the week? How much, let the citizens ponder, depends upon the indiscretion of even one of the keepers? A little oversight, a trifling imprudence might lead to the actual happening of all, and even worse than has been pictured. From causes quite as insignificant the greatest calamities of history have sprung. Horror, devastation and widespread slaughter of human beings have had small mishaps for parents time and again.”

The point to this “huge hoax,” this “wild romance,” was to stress the need for improving the facilities at the zoo and to show what might happen unless the buildings and cages were modernized for greater safety and kept in good repair. But for days gullible Gothamites were too upset trying to save their own hides from the imaginary wild beasts lurking around every street corner to worry about stouter bars anywhere—except around their own homes.

The Herald’s fantastic and openly false story about the escape of all the animals from the zoo created almost as much panic on that Monday 75 years ago as would a headline today that an atom bomb had smashed the Empire State Building.

Such deliberate newspaper hoaxes as this zoo yarn were far more common in the “good old days” than they are in 1949. And few of these shockers carried a payoff paragraph at the end—or any hint that the whole story was other than gospel truth.

For instance, let’s look back at a remarkable “scientific” story the New York Sun printed in 1835. The article, published in daily installments from August 25 through August 31, was supposed to have been reprinted from the Edinburgh Journal of Science—a publication which, incidentally.

did not exist. This serialized hoax, running under the heading “Great Astronomical Discoveries, Lately Made by Sir John Herschel, L.L.D. F.R.S. &c. at the Cape of Good Hope,” did as much to boost the Sun’s circulation as any love-nest slaying or hammer murder might do a century later.

Sir John headed a group of astronomers who had finally succeeded in setting up a marvellously powerful telescope on the Cape of Good Hope, according to the Sun’s report. Through this great instrument he discovered “wondrous secrets which had been hid from the eyes of all men that had lived since the birth of time.” Most amazing of these wonders was the revelation of life on the moon.

Far from being a barren, uninhabited planet, the moon had strange, lush vegetation, weird animals with hairy masks to guard their eyes against glare—and winged men and women! These happy little lunar people, who stood scarcely four feet high, wore no clothes. Their bodies, though, were covered with a bear-like (!) fur and when they landed on the ground, they walked “in an erect and dignified manner.”

The Sun’s vivid account of lunar life created a sensation not only among the suckers of that day but also among the scientists throughout the world. After the final installment on the moon story, the Sun published an illustrated booklet on Sir John’s discoveries. The reprint became a runaway best-seller. For months anyone who disputed the story was considered merely a sore-headed crackpot—a real “lunatic.”

But rival publishers, jealous of the Sun’s booming circulation, began checking on the story and eventually disclosed that the “great discoveries” were simply a terrifically tall tale. A young reporter sitting right in the Sun office had cooked up Sir John, his telescope and all his astounding “observations” about the strange life on the moon.

It took Orson Welles, though, to show that the radio is a hundred times more effective than a newspaper in scaring people out of their wits. Like the zoo hoax in the Herald many years before, his Martian broadcast carried an explanation—which also was ignored, as was that final paragraph in the animal fantasy.

Welles’ Mercury Theater production went on the air in a Halloween spirit on the night of Sunday, October 30, 1938. This bogey broadcast, a dramatization of The War of the Worlds, written by H. G. Wells and published in 1898, described how men from Mars invaded the earth. But this thriller had been brought up to date, and the locale shifted from England to the United States.

Welles carefully explained all this in an announcement at the beginning of the program. Apparently a lot of listeners paid no attention. Others—thousands of them—tuned in late and heard shocking statements delivered in a breathless newscast style: “Flash! Meteor reported landing near Grover’s Mill, N. J.. .. Fifteen hundred killed. . . .No, it’s not a meteor—it’s a flying metallic cylinder. . . . Poison gas is sweeping over New Jersey—-The invaders are flying over the nation, raining bombs. . . . The Martians are using death .rays. . . .”

Hysteria broke out over the entire country. The bravest of the listeners grabbed shotguns and rifles and headed for the “scene of the invasion” to do battle. All over the country people flocked into churches to pray.

It took a long time for the radio and the newspapers to end the nation-wide panic.

Then last winter another broadcast version of the invasion-from-Mars story sent the citizens of Quito, Ecuador, fleeing into the streets. The enraged residents wrecked the radio station and a newspaper plant and set the buildings ablaze. Before troops restored order, 21 persons had lost their lives in the panic.

Quite a different kind of a hoax—and possibly the most notorious since the ancient Greeks pulled their classic trick of loading troops into a big wooden horse to enter Troy and capture the besieged city—was the Cardiff Giant. This monstrosity, the figure of a man 10 feet tall and four feet wide, was excavated at a depth of five feet by well-diggers on the farm of Abe Newell near Cardiff, N. Y., and introduced to a credulous public in 1899.

Newell lost no time in cashing in on the publicity. He erected a tent over the mammoth, then charged 50 cents a look to the thousands of curious who stormed his property for a glimpse at the colossus. Later the figure was exhibited to great crowds at nearby Syracuse. The leading scientists began a heated guessing game that soon made the Cardiff Giant the most famous figure in America. Doctors said the giant was the petrified remains of a Goliath who existed hundreds or thousands of years ago. Others said it was a gypsum statue that must have been buried by Jesuit priests back about the year 1600.

A skeptical paleontology professor (expert on fossils) at Yale, O.C. Marsh, pricked the bubble. He called the mammoth a fraud— merely a modern statue—and not a very good one at that. Since the figure was made of soluble gypsum, the professor pointed out that it would have dissolved completely after a few years in the very damp soil on the Newell farm.

As it turned out, the Cardiff Giant was the work of a Chicago stonecutter hired to do the job by George Hull, a relative of Newell. Hull got the idea for the monster not only to make money but also to confute a minister with whom he had an argument about the existence of giants in Biblical times.

The figure was made of gypsum, all right. Then it was dipped in black ink, sanded and treated with sulphuric acid to “age” the figure and give it the Old Look. Pores were created by using a special hammer fitted with sharp needles, but it was impossible to fake any vestiges of hair. From Chicago the statue was shipped to Cardiff and buried. Unfortunately for the hoaxers there wasn’t enough secrecy.

P. T. Barnum, who, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and other celebrities of the day, fell for this colossal hoax, tried to buy the giant for $100,000. But his offers were turned down. Undaunted, he had a similar statue made which he exhibited as the original. So, the great showman pulled a hoax upon a hoax!

For the all-time world’s heavyweight hoaxer, though, there is still nobody to challenge that amazing old trickster, the great Barnum himself. During his fantastic career as a showman, he never ran out of crowd-stopping fakes—always “the one and only,” “the astounding sensation of the age,” etc.

Once Barnum whitewashed a giant Jumbo and passed it off as the genuine white elephant of Siam. Another time he grafted the body of a monkey on to the tail of a fish and made a fortune displaying it as the actual corpse of a mermaid.

But long before Barnum’s time, and long afterward, there have always been a plentiful of hoaxes to shock the world—from that Trojan Horse packed with Greeks to the current “magic spike” that can cure everything from baldness to backseat driving.

How gullible are you? Are you willing to put your faith in a magic elixir absolutely guaranteed to keep you young all your life? Have you seen any sea serpents or flying saucers lately? Do you accept the fantastic things you hear or read without that proverbial grain of salt?

If your answers are “yes,” then you’re a ready-made customer for some Barnum’s “Great Unknown.”

For Barnum found he could drum up terrific crowds for his “Great Unknown,” which he displayed with plenty of fanfare on a railroad siding. The customers lined up one by one before a freight car, then paid for a quick look at the “Unknown.”

And what was the mysterious “Great Unknown”? An empty freight car—and a request not to reveal this secret marvel to the next customer.

As Barnum remarked, “One’s born every minute.”

One what?—did the man say? Why hello, there, sucker! •

I’d like to see them make

Everybody has hit own pot idea of some gadget he would like to see in general use. What is YOURS? Popular Science Monthly will pay five dollars for every such suggestion that its editors decide to publish.

Cartoons by SYD LANDI

Dashboard That Tells All.
Gauges to show the motorist exactly how much air is in the tires, how much oil and water in the engine. Suggested by L. R. Ruegg, Lake Mills, Wis.

Beds Hung from Ceiling. Using a pulley system, beds could be raised when the floor needed dusting or adjusted to suit an occupant’s whim, says Mrs. R. Kash, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Television Telephone. Victor J. Tunison, Trumansburg, N. Y., believes it would be an advantage to push a button and be able to see as well as hear the person to whom you are phoning.

Palette for the Palate. Having wrestled with buffet luncheons, Bruce Deutsch, Clarksville, Tenn., suggests a safety-first service tray shaped and thumb-holed like an artist’s palette.

Electric Pants Creaser. With such a gadget, made to fit into any ordinary socket, Stephen J. Stack, Plains, Pa., believes that a man’s trousers could always have a knife-blade edge.

Pain-killing Drill. James H. Gillen, Jr., of Seattle, thinks patients would exclaim, “Doc, it’s a pleasure,” if dentists could use a liquid anesthetic that would percolate through drills.

Divers Explore New Depths in 1-Man Sub

DEEP sea explorers are now enabled to fathom the ocean’s secrets to a depth of more than 815 feet, thanks to the invention of a (living suit which has been dubbed the “one-man sub.”

Until recently divers could only descend to a depth of about 200 feet, while submarines could only go a little deeper, about 300 ft. In submarines it was not possible to work around in wrecked ships or examine the ocean floor.

The new diving suit, which amounts to an adjustable case carrying a crew of one man, permits minute exploration of the ocean bottom with complete comfort and the utmost flexibility of movement. The upper part of the suit has four windows of thick compressed glass and contains the signal and light controls, the valves and the instruments for measuring pressure and temperature.

The suit is made of Siemans Martin Steel and Fundit Aluminum and weighs only 1000 lbs. Depths attained are seen in drawing.

FLY-SIZE MOTOR RUNS

So tiny that it rests easily on a finger nail, an electric motor constructed by an Italian youth weighs less than an ounce. The Lilliputian power plant has forty-five Parts and develops about eight-one-thousandths of a horsepower.

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Lobbyist for Hobbyists

“You need a hobby,” warned the doctor. So Dave Elman dug up more than 500,000 pastimes—for other people.

By Fred Horsley

“PICK any noun in the dictionary, and I’ll name you a hobby for that word,” Dave Elman, the originator of radio’s Hobby Lobby, boasted as he leaned back in his office chair in midtown Manhattan.

“All right,” I said and opened up a small dictionary on his desk. “Here’s one for you—auk.”

“That’s easy. I’ve got that hobby right here in the office. Ned Hand of the American Museum of Natural History collects the remains of auks as his hobby. See those bones over in the corner? That’s your auk hobby.”

“Well, here’s a slippery one for you— eel.”

“Know a guy down in Florida who makes a hobby of electric eels. Spends all his spare time trying to find out just how much voltage one of those shocking fish can put out.”

“That’s not bad so far, Dave, but who do you know that makes a hobby of eggshells?”

“Believe it or not, there’s a lady out in Milwaukee who makes lovely pictures out of eggshells. She saves all her broken shells, then arranges them on canvas in pretty pictures.”

“I don’t think anybody could do much with an old potato besides putting it in a pot. How about potato?”

Dave pulled his chubby chin a second, then grinned like a cherub.

“‘Got just the man for you. Louis Strakes, a former Manhattan restaurant man. carves faces from potatoes. Does a fine job, too.”

“Well, Dave, this one is going to spoil your perfect score—zero.”

“Zero’s a tough word but even on nothing I can give you something for a hobby. I had an Army officer from Fort Monmouth, N. J., on my show not long ago. His hobby was not merely zero but absolute zero. He was trying to find out whether he could get anything all the way down to zero cold. Theoretically, that’s minus 459.6 degrees Fahrenheit. He hadn’t quite made it yet. but he was having lots of fun trying.”

I was surprised that anyone could make good on such a fantastic boast. Later, when I found that Elman had carefully catalogued more than half a million hobbies in the overflowing files lining his big Madison Avenue offices, it was no longer so amazing that he could name a hobby for any noun you picked out of the dictionary. If Elman used all the hobby material he has stowed about his offices, he could keep running his weekly radio program for more than 400 years without ever repeating a single hobby.

As if he didn’t have enough hobbies already on hand, every week some 4000 hobbyists send him not only letters but samples of their hobbies, which may be anything from soap bubbles to bombs. Being a considerate fellow, he doesn’t want to throw away some item a hobbyist has spent years creating or collecting. Dave’s problem now is not finding hobbies but figuring what to do about all the material that keeps filling up his hobby warehouse and flooding him out of his home and his office.

In Elman’s 49 years on earth he has collected some 550,000 odds and ends from other people’s spare-time activity. Yet he . would gladly give away this entire collection just to have seven worn-out toothbrushes again. For these long-lost molar scrubbers marked his debut in show business.

When he was six, the “doctor” in a medicine show stopping in Fargo, N. D., picked Dave from the sidewalk audience to demonstrate a miraculous tooth-powder that cured everything from rheumatism to fallen arches. Because of Dave’s successful demonstration he was hired to be the model for the show’s seven-day stand. Elman says his payoff was seven battered toothbrushes and “the awfullest gob of penny candy you ever saw in your life.”

After doing a number of small parts in the local theater, he was told to quit the theater or leave school. At sixteen he finally left school for a tent show. He has been a professional entertainer ever since, playing everything from showboats to burlesque before he wound up behind a microphone.

In 1937 Dave’s oldest boy, eight-year-old Jackie, suddenly died of pneumonia. For two weeks he was too upset by his grief to concentrate on anything but the tragedy of his loss. Finally Dave’s doctor told him he would lose his mind if he didn’t pull himself together. The doctor urged him to throw himself into a hobby.

“I went home and got out a book on hobbies,” Dave recalled. “I tried to skim through the first chapters, but I found my mind wandering again. The book was all about stamps, coins and the usual prosaic collecting hobbies. I got so disgusted with the boring stuff, I threw the book against the wall and swore I could dig up more interesting hobbies myself. I used to clip newspaper items that caught my fancy and put them in scrapbooks. I remembered seeing a story about a man whose hobby was angle worms. I started going through the old clippings. Next thing I knew, it was six hours later and I still hadn’t found the angle worm piece. Then I realized that for the first time since my son’s death, I had been absorbed in what I was doing—and that I had found my own hobby in other people’s hobbies.”

The following day Elman began hunting in earnest for newspaper and magazine stories about people with remarkable hobbies. The New York Times and the Herald Tribune gave him permission to search their morgues for more clues to absorbing pastimes. When he had collected some 300 stories on outstanding hobbyists, he got the idea for a radio program.

“I wanted a show that would stimulate the spare-time activities of others so that their lives would be fuller, richer and more meaningful. I wanted to put on that show real, normal people who were enriching their lives with purposeful but fun-producing hobbies—and I wanted to pass on their hobbies to others. That’s how Hobby Lobby started—with each hobbyist lobbying for his own hobby.”

After a tryout on WOR. Hobby Lobby soon changed from an experimental sustaining program to a nationwide commercial feature. Hobby Lobby became the first successful hobby show, although more than 500 had been tried and found wanting.

To make up a show, Elman and his staff screen the most likely letters in his weekly mail and check the office files for seven or eight unusual but varied hobbyists. After he has made a selection, he phones or wires the hobbyists and has them come to New York as his guests, at his expense.

The hobbies for which Dave lobbies on the air range from serious and profitable pastimes to such amusing trivialities as organizing a Union for Abused Husbands, or dreaming up a Rube Goldberg machine for pulling up pants.

But whether the hobby is silly or serious, Dave’s radio audiences seem to have almost as much fun as the hobbyists. His Hooper rating has been as high as 17. That means his listeners were estimated at more than 17,000,-000. His transcribed programs are rebroadcast not only in Canada but even in faraway Africa.

A lot of queer hobbies give satisfaction to no one but the hobbyist, who doesn’t think his particular avocation strange at all. Take Mrs. J. B. Clopton, an Alabama schoolteacher, who paints on cobwebs. She got the idea from reading about an European family who did that delicate artwork. It took Mrs. Clopton two years and several hundred webs to produce her first picture on a cobweb. She exhibited 17 of them to the studio audience, however, when she appeared on Hobby Lobby. According to Dave, those cobweb landscapes and portraits were really beautiful.

Annette Avers was a nice little girl in Portage, Wis. Like other nice little girls in her home town, she sometimes went to the store on errands for her mother. One day when Annette went to the grocery, however, her appearance nearly caused a riot. For on the end of her leash was not a playful puppy but an all too-serious-looking six-foot rattlesnake.

She was a little surprised at all the excitement because, after all, the big rattler was only her favorite pet, Elmer. He had even helped her learn to swim by letting her hang on to his tail as he wiggled through the water. Her father had given Annette her first snake on her very first birthday—not a rattler then but a harmless fox snake. She had loved snakes ever since. In 1940, when she was seven, she appeared on the Hobby Lobby with both hands full of her pets. Before that show, however, Dave took the precaution of building a stout screen between himself and little Annette with her snakes.

Hobbies often mean money as well as fun, as a lot of people on Dave’s show have demonstrated. That profit angle interests almost everybody—that goes for Dave, and me, too.

Blowing square soap bubbles sounds like one of Major Hoople’s goofier projects. Wallace Block of Buffalo, N. Y., who owns a photographic laboratory, claims such wacky bubbling is a practical commercial business. He blows triangular, cylindrical and square bubbles by using a special wire hoop or frame which he dips in the soap solution.

“These goemetrical soap bubbles, Mr. El-man, serve a very good purpose,” Block told Dave before the mike. “They’re used to test the explosive quality of gases. In laboratories they fill a soap bubble with gas, light it, and it explodes. If they used glass, it would shatter and that would be dangerous. But no one has ever been injured by a bursting soap bubble.”

Sometimes Dave comes across a man whose hobby is his fellowman. Such a hobbyist is Admiral Richard E. Byrd, the noted polar explorer. He appeared on Dave’s program to explain why he, an Admiral of the Navy, made a hobby of promoting world peace.

During his second Antarctic expedition, Byrd was alone for six months at the world’s most southerly outpost. There in the loneliness and darkness of the polar night he was poisoned by the fumes from a faulty stove. Death seemed inevitable as he lay helpless in his tiny shack beneath the snow. He thought of the world and its many troubles. He became convinced that war was the greatest folly of mankind. He solemnly resolved that if he lived through this ordeal he would devote all his energy to the cause of peace.

“When the great masses of the people of the world fully comprehend why another general war would end our civilization,” Admiral Byrd declared on Hobby Lobby, “I believe they will do something about it. . . the people of the world are 200 to 1 against war . . . the force for peace is the greatest force in the world … no nation can for long stand the unified condemnation of the world . . . From a practical standpoint, no nation could afford to be put into Coventry by the world …. And it can be done without bloodshed.”

But even with Dave’s best lobbying for the peace-loving Admiral, he couldn’t put over his hobby. For that program took place more than ten years ago—-on the brink of World War II.

Dave keeps on encouraging hobbyists, though, whether they are idealists like the Admiral or practical gagsters like the inventor of the pants-puller-upper. He even encourages his own personal pastimes whenever he gets a chance—fishing for marlin in the deep sea, or trout in the lakes—or playing around with photography. Last year he helped the neighborhood kids in St. Albans, Long Island, become sharp shutterbugs and junior geniuses in the darkroom. Dave’s real hobby, however, is neither fishing nor photography but playing lobbyist for other people’s hobbies. As the signature on his broadcast puts it: “Hello . .. Who? Hobby Lobby? It’s for you, ladies and gentlemen—it’s for you!”‘

Big Dealings on California Beach as Beauties Use Mammoth Cards

MAMMOTH playing cards suitable for outdoor use have recently become the fad with society beauties on the California beaches. The photo shows a poker game in progress with paper plates used as chips. The cards are waterproof and very durable, and while a trifle too large for convenience have proved popular with those seeking something new in the way of amusements. A lapful is dealt to each player instead of a hand.

Wild West in Miniature

1. The stagecoach is here! And for keeps, thanks to Mary Crouch who has carved a tiny western town out of wood. Three years of research went into the project.

2. Mrs. Crouch’s son and helper. Worth, envies the rough but colorful life of the frontiersmen who enliven the realistic village with its 14-foot-long Main Street.

3. Runaway horses are so life like that the look of horror on the lovely lassie’s face seems only natural. Yapping dog, too, contributes his share to the excitement.

4. Artistic Mrs. Crouch of Los Angeles dabs the last bit of paint on one of her 6-inch figures. She has refused offers of $6000 for this exhibit but sells other carvings.

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NEW in SCIENCE

Sharpnel-Proof Vest is displayed by Pfc. Ralph Barlow of Redondo Beach, California. While in front line action in Korea, Barlow was hit by shrapnel and knocked to ground, but received no serious injury. Vest stopped the metal fragment.

Bell X-5 is undergoing tests at Edwards Air Force Base in California. It is our first plane able to change the sweep of its wings in flight from the most forward position, top, to a fully sweptback position, bottom, in 30 seconds. It is jet propelled.

Surfagage, precision device used by General Motors, detects scratches as small as one-millionth of an inch. It insures accuracy of finished surfaces of machined pieces and measures roughness of crankshaft, valve and precision parts in autos.

Solar Cooker is demonstrated in India’s National Physics Laboratory. The four-foot polished bowl concentrates the sun’s rays on the cooker and has power equivalent to 300 watts. It is hoped that, mass-produced, it will sell for $10 (U.S.).

Dummy Men will test new parachutes for the G.Q. Parachute Co., England, in the future. Made of steel and covered with rubberized foam, they weigh 182 lbs. and reproduce the behavior of a human body when dropped from high-altitude planes.

Bodygraph gives accurate measurements for tailoring. Felt vests of known dimensions are smoothed into place and have seams joined by photographic elastic bands. Form is registered when seams distend according to shape. D’Angelo, Paris, France.

Lubrication Platform for autos operates like a seesaw. It has a capacity of 1-1/2 tons and is adjustable for cars with wide tread. There is a clearance of four feet when one end is down. Made by Kurt George of Kasel, Germany, and sells for about $90.

Multimonica a novelty instrument, has two keyboards consisting of 41 keys each. With one it can be operated like any organ; with the other it produces tones electronically. It also has a built-in radio.

Shown at Fair in Frankfurt, Germany.

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WHAT IS YOUR ATOMIC IQ?

By J. Robert Connor

GREEK philosophers some 2,000 years ago are believed to be the first people to theorize that there were tiny and invisible particles in all matter. They named these particles atoms. To give you an idea of the smallness of these particles, it is said that if all the people of the world were as tiny as atoms, we would all be able to stand on the head of a pin! Since the atom seems to offer us a bright future, barring war, we should know something about it. This quiz is designed to test your atomic acumen. How do you rate?

True or False (underline one)
1. The first atomic-powered merchant ship to be built by the United States will cost an estimated $39,000,000. The name designated for this vessel by President Eisenhower is the N.S. Savannah. True. False.

2. United States scientists were the first to discover atomic energy. True. False.

3. The A-bomb derives its tremendous energy from atomic fusion. True. False.

4. A reactor is an atomic furnace. True. False.

5. Uranium, the source of nuclear fuel, is far more radioactive than radium. True. False.

6. Pitchblende is an ore containing both radium and uranium. True. False.

7. Isotopes are made up of almost identical atoms that behave chemically the same but have slight differences in their atomic weight. True. False.

8. The latest use for atomic energy, according to the Atomic Energy Commission, is the explosion of a nuclear bomb underground which is expected to open a vast new field in mining and oil techniques. True. False.

9. The inner core of the atom is called the nucleus. True. False.

10. Food irradiated by atomic particles is now being eaten by the United States Army. True. False.

Multiple Choice (underline one) 11. The name of the United States Navy’s first atomic-powered submarine is: Seawolf; Nautilus; Skipjack.

12. Master slave manipulators are: mechanical hands used to handle radioactive materials; mechanical hands used to dig up uranium ore; device used to measure atomic energy.

13. The first commercial atomic power station in the United States is located in: Shippingport, Pa.; Los Alamos, N. M.; Oak Ridge, Tenn.

14. A Geiger counter is an instrument used to: measure radioactive elements; count atomic particles; detect the presence of radioactivity.

15. The nucleus of an atom consists of: electrons and neutrons; neutrons and protons; electrons and ions.

16. A critical mass is: a radioactive pile; amount of nuclear fuel needed to sustain chain reaction; massing of protons.

17. The word “hot” means that a substance is: burning; undergoing nuclear bombardment; highly radioactive.

18. The best shield laboratory workers can use to protect themselves from radiation is: iron; steel; lead.

19. A roentgen is: a unit of radioactive dose; critical mass; radioisotope.

20. The chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission is: John A. McCone; Thomas Murphy; Lewis L. Strauss.

21. The most important material used in atomic energy operations is: U-234; U-238; U-235.

22. The man who proved by experiments that the atoms of various elements are not alike and that each has its characteristic weight was: Albert Einstein; John Dalton; Isaac Newton.

Answers
————————————-

1. True. The first steamship to cross the Atlantic was the S.S. Savannah in 1819. The first atomic-powered merchant ship will be named after it and called the N.S. (Nuclear Ship) Savannah.

2. False. German scientists discovered modern atomic energy in 1938.

3. False. Atomic fission, the splitting of heavy nuclei such as uranium, releases the energy that explodes the atomic bomb.

4. True. An atomic furnace is called a reactor and is designed to withstand the tremendous amount of energy produced by the splitting of atoms.

5. False.

6. True.

7. True.

8. True. Recently the AEC set off an atomic explosion deep in a Nevada mesa. The AEC believes that this new method will lead to obtaining minerals and oil from the ground much more easily and cheaply than is now possible.

9. True.

10. False. Research in this field has been going on for quite some time and the armed forces plan to test irradiated foods in the near future.

11. Nautilus.

12. Mechanical hands used to handle radioactive materials.

13. Shippingport, Pa.

14. A device used to detect the presence of radioactivity.

15. The inner core of the atom consists of neutrons and protons locked together.

16. The amount of nuclear fuel necessary to sustain a chain reaction.

17. Hot means highly radioactive.

18. Lead.

19. A roentgen is a unit of radioactive dose, or exposure.

20. John A. McCone.

21. U-235. Scientists have discovered that U-235, a rare isotope of uranium, is the atom that is most easily split.

22. John Dalton, a Quaker school teacher who lived in the 18th Century.

Give yourself five points for each correct answer. Here’s how to interpret your score: Zero to 30—you’re an atomic dud; 35 to 55—you can distinguish uranium ore from a hunk of coal; 60 to 80—you’re on your way to atomic science degree; 85 to 110—you’re cooking with atoms!

SLIDE-RULE WATCH

NEWEST gadget in do-every-thing watches is the Chronomat, a combination wrist watch, stop watch, timer and circular slide rule. With Swiss-made precision, the Chronomat gives you the time of day, let’s you time anything from an auto race to film souping, and provides a calculator that adds, multiplies, subtracts, figures percentages, ratios and even rates of money exchange. It’s scarcely larger than a 50-cent piece but there’s hardly a mathematical problem this gizmo can’t handle—except how many Brigitte Bardots can stand on the head of a pin. A dream of a gift, the Chronomat is sold by the Wakmann Watch Co. of New York City. The price? Only (gulp!) $110.

INVENTIONS WANTED!

PNEUMATIC PADS lor football players, to provide greater protection with less weight. lames Carrol, Alexandria. Va.

RAKE ON WHEELS, easier to handle, might tempt younger members into policing up the grounds. Bing Lee, Salinas, Calif.

LUMINOUS TARGETS and arrows lor Robin Hoods who like to speed a shaft or two at night. Bill Collins, Manitou Beach, Mich.

LONG-HANDLED BRUSHES for painting hard-to-get-at places above, behind and between things. Mary Fields, Dayton, O.

PUSH-BUTTON governor can be set to local speed limits, makes gendarmes very happy. Celine Gausswin, Springwater, N.Y.

Ike Likes Art
GENERAL Dwight Eisenhower has been a very busy man. First it was the Army, then Columbia University, then SHAPE and now the White House could be just around the corner. A man couldn’t do the jobs Ike has done without having some means of relaxation. With Ike it’s art. When the whistle blows at the end of a tough day, the General unlimbers his art tools and makes like Rembrandt. And he does pretty well, too. One of his early pieces, a painting of an Indian head, sold for $2,600. His oils stole the show at Columbia art exhibit.

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Santa Clauses, Salami-Tyers and Soap-Tasters

Like to join the Brotherhood of Odd-Jobholders? Maybe some of these weird occupations aren’t difficult, but they’re certainly unique.

By E. I. Grinda

EVERY year during two weeks of October and November, men from all aver the United States gather at the most unusual school in the world—Santa Claus College. In Albion, N. Y., they study to be genial St. Nicks, sent there by department store managers who have found that their most acute problem near the end of each year is where to get a good reliable Santa Claus.

Eighteen subjects are covered in the short but intensive course—child psychology being one of the most important. Students must learn the origin, history and meaning of Santa Claus. Without that inner understanding, there is no use in putting on a Santa suit. Then there are classes in dressing the student in the traditional costume and explaining the reason for color, trimming and design. In addition, they are taught the art of make-up.

If, at the end of the course, a man satisfies Dean Charles Howard, he qualifies for a Bachelor Of Santa Claus degree and goes out into the world, thoroughly prepared for his job.

This is a job, you say? Well, it’s only mildly unusual when you consider some others, for thousands of Americans are working at an enormous variety of weird occupations.

There’s Mr. Jones, the sexamian, for instance—he tells the sex of baby chicks. Then, there’s Jim, the dishwasher, better known in the trade as a pearl diver. And Ken, the reducer, who makes a living cutting out curves in women’s shoes. A man who is known as a bubble pricker works in a sausage plant pricking air bubbles in finished sausages. In another plant, women put labels on teabags. They are called teabag taggers. And in still another place, there’s a guy who spends all his time tying the ends of salamis.

Many existing jobs would seem fantastic to the average wage earner who works as a bank teller, stenographer or lawyer. But they certainly do exist—perhaps just a few blocks down from your office, as a matter of fact. Let’s look at some of them.

The little man stood on the pier in Hamburg, Germany, clutching the handle of his butterfly net and peering anxiously around the door. Although debarking passengers eyed him suspiciously, the longshoremen smiled knowingly. They’d seen him around before.

Who was this odd character? Well, this man is a catcher for the Hamburg Zoo. From ports in Argentina, vessels loaded with quehracho wood leave for Hamburg.. The catcher waits until the cargo is unloaded and piled onto the docks for further transport; then his job begins. In the hollow trunks of the trees many small animals and reptiles reside. When the trunks are unloaded, these creatures are jarred. If any survive this ordeal, they are promptly pounced upon by the catcher and his net. He collects his finds into small boxes and deftly hustles them off to the zoo where they will be displayed to amuse and educate the curious public of Hamburg.

One Man’s Headache, the radio soap opera, is on the air. Actors and actresses are sitting around the microphone reading their lines. A door creaks open, a woman’s voice shrieks and then a baby begins to cry. Ruth Patterson is sitting next to the sound effects man in the adjacent room, crying into a pillow. She is so effective in her job as baby crier that many women listeners call the radio studio to ask the program manager if they stick pins into a baby to make it wail. Ruth cries on cue for five programs a day. She’s been doing it for eight years.

There is nothing unusual about Bill Smith’s name but there is about his job. He is a shadow thrower. Mr. Smith operates a 7,000,000-candlepower searchlight at a New Jersey airport. His shadow throwing activities begin when a plane is due.

First, he stabs the darkness with his brilliant light. Then, wearing a heavy overcoat for protection from the heat, Bill steps in front of the light and projects his body in silhouette over the nose of the plane to shield the pilot’s eyes. Smith has been doing this job for ten years and he’s the only professional shadow thrower. “It’s light work,” he says.

Many of the beautifully groomed thoroughbred dogs and cats in the fashionable corners of New York City look snooty to ordinary mongrel human beings. Well, maybe they should be snooty—many of these well-dressed title winners have their own special foods served to them whenever the inclination hits them. Mrs. C. L. Davenport, a dog dietitian of Manhattan, offers a special catering service for them. Every customer’s dog is listed in her files by name, breed, coloration, weight, foibles and habits. She serves a regular menu, specially prepared, for each dog listed and watches each dog’s weight carefully. If he needs to trim off a bit of poundage on his left flank, she prepares a diet to do it.

The old expression about having too many thumbs can’t be employed to describe Harry. Davis of Newport, Conn. He has too many toes. A new neighbor looked into his shop window one day and, after recovering from the first shock, reported what she saw to the police. On investigation, they found Harry’s shop floor covered with realistic wooden toes. Harry Davis makes a living fashioning them for artificial wooden legs.

In Hamilton, Ohio, behind voluptuous leather-covered books on subjects of animal lore, a young woman sits with paint and brush applying color to small round glass disks. She makes phony eyes for extinct animals of all kinds. The history of every animal, bird and fish must be carefully studied, drawings must be found for examination, coloration and environment of every animal or bird must be considered before any attempt is made to make the eyes.

A walk through the park is not a mere pleasure jaunt for Jack Harvey, deep in the heart of Texas. It’s a profession—Jack walks dogs. He’s a professional dog walker, catering to guests who have brought along their pet pooches for a stay at hotels and resorts. Before Jack signs a contract to walk a dog for the duration of the owner’s stay, he acquaints himself personally with the dog for a period of two to six hours. If the hound has not been properly trained to walk without pulling on the leash, Jack will not consider the case. “Everyone wants to look good on the job but when a dog pulls you, well, it doesn’t put you in an advantageous light,” Jack says. “Besides the appearance, the energy it takes to pull a dog back every few minutes is an unnecessary expense to the muscles when you consider a walker walks at least 30 dogs a day.”

Up in the hills of Nilgiri in India there is a secluded sanitarium. Inside, a tall, dark man cures the ailments of thousands of patients brought in by farmers from neighboring towns and villages. This man, dressed in white and wearing rubber gloves, is reverently addressed as doctor and has as his patients tiny ailing larvae. He’s the Doctor Kildare of the silkworm world.

Inside a big circus tent, a man is sprinkling white flour over the ground. After he finishes the job, two boys are called in to lead an elephant over the flour-strewn surface. The elephant’s footprints are then measured for size by the animal tailor. He wheels in his red and blue cart containing all the essentials for his trade. From the measurements imprinted in the flour, the tailor will make a pair of shoes for the elephant to wear in his next performance. When that is done, the monkeys must have their coats re-frilled, the giraffe needs a new sweater for his neck, and Betsy, the old gray mare, is waiting for a replacement of her threadbare hat.

Some people can lie down on the job without worrying about the boss. In a department store in Clinton, Iowa, for instance, a very charming and attractive young woman lies on a mattress on a large bed demonstrating its restful qualities. By her facial expressions the customers gleam that the mattress has all the comforts claimed for it by the manufacturer. She says her job is a very soft one.

Grandmother used to sit before the fire in the winter and spin on the old spinning wheel. Well, Hollywood has its spinners, too. They toil all day by their machines turning out cobwebs for haunted houses and other antiquities.

Most people would feel highly insulted if they were referred to as dumbbells. Fay Parker, however, doesn’t seem to mind it too much. Several months ago her husband, owner and operator of a small construction company, asked Fay for a small favor. He was short a counterweight for a lifting job that needed to be done. Would Fay—all 220 pounds of her—oblige by acting as a dumbbell? Fay consented and she has helped her husband out many times since. In fact, Fay has adopted it as her own special part-time profession.

There’s a skeleton in many a family’s closet but there may be more than one in some—in Will Harpers’, for instance. In his shop in Central Falls, R. I., you encounter human skeletons on every table, chair and chandelier. On Mondays through Fridays, Will sits behind his long work table, fits the bones of human skulls together and attaches the completed skulls to human skeletons. Will assembles the skeletons for medical schools and private collections.

Did you ever get the feeling that someone was watching you from some concealed nook? Well, you never can tell. In the Los Angeles Public Library, a man constantly stands behind a grille with a powerful pair of binoculars. He’s known as a library sleuth. And his job is to spy on would-be thieves and defacers of books in the library.

In the season when the moon hangs low and deep night shrouds the paths and byways, the time is at hand when spooners sigh. But the spooner is not only a Romeo—there are many men who are listed in the professions as spooners. While the spooner of tradition pitches woo on the conventional park bench, the professional spooner scoops out holes for the insertion of dynamite charges on a construction job.

Just about five o’clock one afternoon in Los Angeles, the clouds emptied a torrential downpour upon the city. In a small soap factory it was quitting time and Benny was sad to see the rains come for he knew it would instigate the same old joke from the boys. “Don’t open your mouth, Ben,” they would say, “you know what will happen. Someone will think you’re chewing bubblegum.” Ben is a soap-taster in the factory. When each new boiled batch is ready to be judged, he tastes a sample of it to make Sure it is done and is made to the right specifications. And as a soap-taster he is subjected to many a round of supposedly hilarious comments about his job.

But, Santa Claus, salami-tyer or soap-taster—most of these people have one thing in common. They’re not ashamed of their work. In fact, circumstances have banded them together into a sort of proud fraternity of odd-jobholders. For, despite all the friendly gags and barbed remarks, the fact remains that these jobs are unique.

And such good topics of conversation.

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IT’S NEW!

TRI-OPTIC LENSES for the near-blind give high magnification for near and far vision, normal peripheral vision for localization of objects.

PORTABLE TV set by GE. battery-powered and transistorized. has full selectivity. Cost of transistors keeps it off market for the present.

STOL OTTER, experimental DeHavilland plane, has high lift flaps, thick aura of secrecy. Canadian outfit is testing it on a runway tow rig.

FIRE DETECTION device developed by Minneapolis-Honeywell reacts to smoke, fire, combustible vapor. Ultraviolet sensitivity does it.

SKID-LID WIG made of tough nylon does duty as a crash helmet lor ultra-feminine motor-cyclists or scooter passengers. The inventor is Raymond, a London hairdresser.

TIRED FEET do less damage to floors in lumberjacks’ homes than do naked hobnails. Logging superintendent G. W. Nutter of Mollala. Ore., models portable floor protectors.

FINGER SAVER and nail-holder from Belgium is made of rubber, holds six sizes of nails, is especially useful for driving the smaller sizes. Gizmo pulls out for last tap.

ROCK’S READY to roll in this handsome Hun sportster, an eight-cylinder Horch that Hitler gave to Eva Braun. Actor Hudson uses it in a movie. It cost Adolf a cool $11,000.

INVENTIONS WANTED!

ELECTRONIC FOOD ANALYZER chocks ripeness of fruit vegetables, eliminates bad selections. R. Reece. S. Pasadena, Calif.

PLASTIC COVERED bathtub for little monsters who like to splash. Prevents bathroom flooding. Jack Kruse, Unionville. Conn.

METAL SPIKES on rubber tires which would slip over lawnmower’s wheels, aerate lawn while mowing. Michael Fey, New York, N. Y.

PAINT PILL which brush wielder would merely drop into thinner to produce desired hues. Victor Ashford, Garden Grove, Calif.

LUMINOUS SMOKE that sky writers could use to spell out night messages, produce eyecatching ads. F. H. Kraus, San Antonio, Tex.

Is there a gadget you think should be invented? If so, send its description to Inventions Wanted Editor, MECHANIX ILLUSTRATED. 67 West 44 St., N.Y. 36. N.Y. Each one printed will be awarded $5.

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Big Profits From Little Prophets

The Kahns took the old Swiss weather house, put it on a modern production line and now collect over % million dollars annually.

By Clive Howard

TO make a million dollars, or at least to put yourself far out along the road toward your first million, you don’t necessarily have to invent something that nobody ever thought of before. As a matter of fact, you don’t have to invent anything.

You can, like young Mr. and Mrs. Robert Kahn of Highland Park, Illinois, simply resurrect for the modern market an invention that is nearly as old as time.

The Kahns own one of the country’s most unique manufacturing concerns called Weatherman, Inc. Weatherman’s sole product is the old-fashioned Swiss weather house which in the early 1900s was as staple as a household item as the hand-cranked coffee grinder. But by 1944 when the Kahns decided to risk $260 in the hope of selling a few hundred—or a few thousand at the most—the weather house had become just as obsolete as the coffee grinder.

Instead of a few thousand, the Kahns have sold to date more than 3,000,000. The company’s Chicago headquarters mails them out at the rate of 6,000 a week. Last year Weatherman, Inc. grossed $750,000. The Kahns expect the figure to go even higher this year.

Weatherman’s biggest selling item is almost an exact model of the weather house that was sold 50 years ago, except that the tiny figures which stand out of the house to forecast clear or wet weather are made of plastic. The house itself is still made of thin sections of walnut put together with tacks.

Second biggest seller is the Mickey Mouse model, designed by Mrs. Kahn. If the weather is going to be clear, Mickey Mouse emerges from the house. Donald Duck, clad in raincoat and carrying an umbrella, forecasts wet weather.

Like the cuckoo clock, nobody holds a patent on the working principle of the weather house. It operates tike the hygrometer, the instrument commonly used to measure humidity, or moisture in the air. The “motor” is a thin length of catgut —highly sensitive to any change in humidity. When the air becomes damp, the catgut grows longer; it shrinks in dry air. This action moves the little figures in and out of-the house. Since changes in humidity usually indicate changes in weather which occur from eight to 24 hours later, the little figures thus get their forecasting ability.

Toylike as the gadget may seem, it is astonishingly accurate. February, 1948, for instance, was a month that set new records for sudden and violent rain and snowstorms. Weather bureau experts all over the country were caught napping.

But one of the Kahn’s Mickey Mouse models, placed in the window of a Chicago department store, never made a mistake through the whole month!

The gadget’s accuracy, as a matter of fact, was what caused the Kahns to risk going into business. The idea really started with Mrs. Kahn’s hobby of collecting Swiss weather houses. The collection now numbering 40, stands on the shelves of the family library. Some are made of tin and date back to the American revolution. Others are hand carved and go all the way back to the Black Forest in Germany, the world center of weather house manufacturing at one time. .

At dinner one evening, Mrs. Kahn asked her husband, owner of a Chicago advertising agency, “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea to make and sell weather houses?” Then, after a short pause to let the idea register, she added, “Why couldn’t we do it ourselves?”

“The idea,” Bob Kahn confesses today, “didn’t sound very good at first. In two years of advertising in hobby magazines and haunting antique shops, Mrs. Kahn had been able to collect only 38 weather houses. Nobody seemed interested in them. Besides, she was never asked to pay more than ten dollars even for the best hand-carved models. Nobody else even bothered to collect “them.”

Then an idea dawned on Bob Kahn. Weather reports had been banned from radio and newspapers for the duration. “Maybe,” he ventured, “people will buy weather houses at least until the war is over.”

Neither of the Kahns knew the first thing about manufacturing and selling gadgets. Bob’s experience was in straight advertising; his wife had worked as a commercial artist before her marriage. Moreover, in wartime there were some formidable barriers against the starting of a business on something less than a shoestring. Even the smallest manufacturing plants were tied up with war contracts. Raw materials were either scarce or unavailable. But the Kahns were logical, cautious people and the course they followed might be a blueprint for anyone hoping to duplicate their success.

They had a very slim bank account and, as Bob Kahn will readily admit, “a certain amount of luck.” The luck began to show itself when an Iowa toy manufacturer, whose plant hadn’t entirely been converted to war use, advertised in a Chicago newspaper that he had room for limited production of a nonessential item. Bob Kahn answered the ad and Mrs. Kahn got busy designing a weather house that was almost the duplicate of the ones generally sold around 1900. A neighborhood carpenter built the first model.

Their first disappointment came from the manufacturer. He could produce the weather houses; he could produce the roof, sides, flooring and other parts of the house; he could send these to the Kahns who would then attend to painting and assembling them. But the Kahns would have to provide the wood, preferably walnut, and they also would have to assure the manufacturer of two weeks’ work at $100 a week.

What really made the Kahns decide to risk their savings was the answer to their shot-in-the-dark query to the War Assets Administration. They were given the name of a manufacturer who had thousands of rifle stocks rejected by the Army. These, by a fortunate coincidence, were made of walnut. The Kahns signed a contract with the toy manufacturer and together wrote and illustrated an ad which was placed in a Chicago newspaper. It cost the Kahns $60.

The results were truly astonishing. The day after the ad appeared, the Kahns had 400 orders, a few days later 800 and by the end of a week, more than 1500. They tried another ad ten days after the first and got 2000 orders.

Then Bob Kahn invested $6 in postage and sent letters to 200 small radio stations all over the country. The letter offered the stations a salesman’s percentage of whatever number of weather houses they could sell over the air. In three weeks, 18 stations, some of them in cities of 75,000 population, were hawking weather houses over the air. Orders were going to the Iowa plant at the rate of several thousand a week. The weather house then was selling for $1.69.

And then it began to look as though the Kahns’ new business might suddenly choke to death on its own prosperity. They had been doing all the assembling and mailing from their own home, and they were falling far behind in filling orders. Mrs. Kahn solved the crisis with an idea that put Weatherman right back in business—for good. In Chicago she knew of a group of women who were trying to raise money for a neighborhood church. “Why not,” she suggested to the committee chairman, “get a group of women to assemble and paint weather houses on a piecework basis?”

Shortly thereafter 20 women were at work in a loft the Kahns had rented on Chicago’s North Side. The loft was strategically located next door to a post office —again Mrs. Kahn’s idea—and the complicated shipping problem was solved.

The Kahns admit they made some costly mistakes. On several occasions they attempted to sell modernized, streamlined versions of the weather house. One such model was a plastic owl with tiny plastic weather forecasters. Like almost every other attempt to change the weather house radically, it was a dismal failure. Now the Kahns are convinced that people who buy weather houses will buy only the kind their parents and grandparents bought before them.

Children, however, have reacted wonderfully to the Mickey Mouse model which Mrs. Kahn has designed. This was an expensive gamble for the Kahns. The license to reproduce the Disney figures cost them $5,000 and the dies cost $8,500. But the model sells so fast that last year Walt Disney collected more than $10,000 in royalties.

Today the Kahns have a business that not only is getting larger every day, but is actually running itself. Mrs. Kahn spends just a few hours a week at the Chicago assembling plant; the rest of the time she spends with her four children. Bob Kahn handles the business and advertising affairs of Weatherman, Inc., but still maintains his advertising agency.

Weatherman’s success has put Bob Kahn in a unique advertising category, however. In the business he is now known as the “King of Gadgets.” Gadget-makers, inventors, people with jackpot ideas arrive at his office in an endless stream and he gives each a careful hearing.

Some of the ideas have merit and some haven’t. But Bob Kahn, mindful of the fact that every idea is good until proven bad, works hard on all of them. Having struck it rich himself, he is trying to help other people do the same.

INVENTIONS WANTED!

NO KNEES-FREEZE with this plug-in car blanket that works on car juice or drive-in outlet. For winter sports car drivers and their victims. Bill Hickey, Stillwater, N.Y.

KNOW MORE ABOUT MPG with this clever fuel gauge that tells you how much gas you have in gallons instead of the usual full-empty gauge. Earl J. Heckel. Galesburg, Ill.

NO MORE STICKING NECKS OUT with headlights that turn in any direction desired. A boon to night travelers finding their way in suburbia. Barry Biesen, Everett. Wash.

NO MORE BACK-BUSTING with this foot pedal that opens your trunk for you, eliminating purple-faced bend to put down heavy burden. Dean Robertson, San Diego, Calif.

NO MORE BIG JERKS on the tow line if it has a spring in the middle to soak them up. Just happy little jerks seated at the wheel. Douglas Anderson, Detroit Lakes, Minn.

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Cleveland Club Helps New Inventors

Fledgling gadgeteers won’t be at the mercy of dishonest promoters when Bill Korth’s New Inventors Club is battling for their rights.

By Alfred Eris

NO one ever has worried much about the troubles of inventors.

More than one inventive soul will shame-facedly confess to having been fleeced out of his idea and the time, effort and money it involved. Countless others will admit that they just never did anything about their inventions, and perhaps threw away a chance to make big money, for the simple reason that they didn’t know how or where to begin.

That situation is being changed since Bill Korth entered the picture in Cleveland, Ohio. His New Inventors Club sees to it that fledgling inventors are no longer at the mercy of sharks and dishonest promoters, and it’s willing to lend a helping hand whenever needed. For example: Recently, an inventor came to the office of the New Inventors Club with drawings of a lawnsprinkler. It was obvious that the device was completely impractical for it involved the use of supporting prongs which would tear into lawns. It lacked the “easy-to-use” feature all such devices should have and was expensive to manufacture.

At the Club, the lawnsprinkler was equipped with a double-duty cutting tool; its bad features were eliminated, and it was simplified so that it could be turned out in mass production. Thus improved and patented, it sold fast—and in the thousands!

“Aaaaa,” you ask, leering skeptically, “but what did all this help cost the inventor?”

Well, five bucks is the answer!

William J. Korth and several friends started the Club a few years ago. They met in the rear of a tinsmith’s shop but today, with over 1000 members—some as far away as Africa and the Hawaiian Islands—the New Inventors Club occupies most of a floor at 5511 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, and will probably move shortly to a building of its own. The primary purpose of the Club is to hire legal talent cheaper, make patent searches quicker and find manufacturers for new products.

Korth maintains a full-time patent attorney in Washington to make searches, another full-time attorney in the offices of the Club, draughtsmen, model-makers and other specialized personnel. In addition, he , personally interviews about 32 inventors each day, exclusive of the many who consult him by telephone or are assisted by his receptionists.

His background is responsible for his intense interest in helping inventors. His father operated a novelty paper-hat shop in Brooklyn, N.Y., and one day Korth, Jr. had a brainwave and simplified an important manufacturing step. His parents were overwhelmed—and another inventor was launched. Korth then began working on gadgets and came up with one winner after another.

In each case, however, his experience was identical—he was cheated! Four times he was paid from $25 to $100 for inventions which, he found later, sold in fabulously large quantities and made lots of money. There was a lemon-squeezer, an improved window-cleaner, a bathing shoe and a pencil sharpener.

“I got disgusted,” he says—and began to work as a free-lancer, improving manufacturing equipment for industrialists. He charged nothing unless his improvements worked and saved substantial sums for the plants. Then, his fee was based on the yearly savings effected by his improvements. Working in this fashion, he rolled up checks for $10,000 to $30,000.

With a background as versatile as that, Korth has little difficulty in handling the problems inventors bring before him. The $5 membership dues represents all an inventor has to pay and entitles him to free advice and consultation the year round. If he needs working models, searches or patent applications he then pays on a fixed-price basis at lower rates that he could possibly get oh his own.

If he needs help, he can get that too. Club rules in this respect are—”If your idea is not fully developed and the Club’s Consulting Board cannot improve on your idea, we then call in members of the Club, in the category of your invention, to see if they can offer any improvements. Everything developed on your idea belongs to YOU. The members called in for development on your idea do not charge for their time, and the Club does not charge you for the developments.”

The Club doesn’t guarantee to make a best-seller of any item, no matter how bad. But, there’s the case of the inventor who submitted a working model of a collapsible umbrella. It was a work of art, a miracle of ingenuity, a triumph of engineering—but impractical, nevertheless. It was too elaborate. too bulky and cost too much to make. Today the principle of that umbrella is being offered as a ride for kiddies, with practically the same engineering structure.

When some inventors have their pet ideas rejected they really seem brokenhearted. When he rejects their brainchildren, Korth asks them “Isn’t it better to be turned down now rather than to go ahead with this and wind up being taken for a ride by gyp promoters?”

If you’re the suspicious type and don’t trust your grandmother, much less Korth, Bill has the answer for you, too. When you join the Club, you’re given a Patinvent, a copyrighted form which you fill out listing details of your invention.-Then you send it to yourself by registered mail. When received, you don’t open it, but file it carefully away. A duplicate is filed with the New Inventors Club. In the event of any squabble later your registered Patinvent proves you had the idea first.

Club officers are not permitted to give advice until the inventor has been protected in this fashion. They are not permitted to invest in any invention either. In the event the Club helps in development, the inventor has to okay each drawing and specification before it is submitted to Washington.

The Club’s motto is, From Idea to Sale —and it lives up to the slogan. Many a manufacturer has asked Korth “Do we have to do business with the inventor? If so, the deal is off.” Some inventors are notorious for ruining business deals and for these the Club will take over if desired. Says Korth: “I’ve never met an inventor who was a crack salesman; they undersell or oversell.”

The New Inventors Club acts as the inventors’ agent and collects for its services a flat ten per cent of royalties. Through personal contact with manufacturers and through distribution of its bulletin to firms and Chambers of Commerce all over the country, the Club has obtained contracts for dozens of inventors. But nothing is done without the inventor’s full approval—the Club advises and recommends but it is Joe Doakes, inventor, who decides whether he cares to sign the contract.

“What if the Club helps me to patent my invention” you ask, “and I wanna sell it on my own?” Quite simple—you pay the Club $15 extra for its help, then peddle your invention yourself, all rights belonging to you. But more than one inventor has taken this step and come back to the Club later after a few narrow escapes from inventor-mangling sharks.

Club members come from all walks of life and include the ladies, too. Take Teresa Knaver, of Cleveland. She has seven brothers, several of them engaged in mechanical work and has been exposed to a lot of shop talk since she was an infant. It had its effect, for she now has four patents pending. Her inventions include a new type of clothes hamper, a safety-control for cars and a tube squeezer.

Curt W. Tyner, of Lorain, Ohio, is a pipe-welder by trade and has a patent pending on Bike-Wing, a unit he made first for one of his four daughters. It’s a plastic gadget which clips on to any child’s bike and with one to four propellers “converts” it to a plane.

Then there’s James F. Connor of Cleveland who is an engineer. His invention of a booster-vibrator for heavy excavating equipment was snatched up immediately for consideration by the Army. His other invention is the trademarked Relco,a shopping bag which “puts the load on wheels.” It consists of a collapsible canvas bag mounted on wheels which the housewife can carry with her on buses. When it is full, she can simply roll it along the ground.

Many Club members have had enough confidence in their brainchildren to go into % business for themselves, manufacturing and marketing on their own. Nathan Moschell, a salesman, is marketing his own Tot-Holder, a safety vest for kiddies. Raymond Philips, a telephone man, is selling a protector for pipe threads. Stanley Kozikowski is taking mail orders for Lip-Rite, a stencil for applying lipstick. William Delzani, a bartender, stuck closely to his own trade and came up with a cocktail tray which he is now marketing on his own. Another shoemaker who stuck to his last is Walter Worman, an electrical maintenance man who devised a ladder turret which can be attached to any truck.

Sometimes, inventions have strange beginnings. Joseph Freedson, an engineer, was called upon by a manufacturer to devise a method of piercing raisins so that they could take color for use on cakes and novelties. In three weeks, Freedson had the problem solved—and now markets his own Fruit Piercing Machine.

Production costs are naturally the greatest obstacle to making and selling your own gadget. John Grosser, a salesman of auto parts, got the idea for a folding clothes-line hanger. “I had had several other ideas,” says Grosser, “but waited too long and others beat me to it.” So he was determined to get this one on the market himself.

The dies alone came close to $2000, but Grosser managed to scrape up enough to hurdle this barrier. He’s successfully selling the hanger now for $13.95.

Many great inventions have been fathered by pure accident and one product of the New Inventors Club falls into this classification. Inventor Paul J. Annas is almost completely deaf. One day his hearing aid was troubling him and he had removed it. He had some gelatin capsules on his desk and just happened to put one into his ear, much as some people do when toying with pencils. He was shocked— he could hear! Annas tried it again and again —there was no doubt about it, sounds were coming through!

After a great deal of experimentation with the aid of Dr. Raymond A. Bice, Annas has a hearing aid unlike any other in the world. It is so sensitive that it can be used only with one eardrum.

The Club recognized the importance of this immediately and sent for 128 hearing-aid patents- from Washington in order to check on their claims. Nothing similar was found. The Annas-Bice aid is nothing more than a bit of medicated chemical tissue—a substitute for the ear membrane. No batteries, no wire —just chemical tissue. It makes the eardrum so sensitive that you can whisper from several feet away to a deaf man using the tissue, with the assurance that he will hear perfectly. It’s by no means a cure-all—it will work with most but not all cases of deafness.

Korth himself has many inventions on the fire. Some of his pet projects are beauties, too —he has mailboxes which ring a buzzer when the mail is inserted and light up to notify the caller that messages may be left. He also has a machine which cuts duplicate keys in about 30 seconds.

But Korth doesn’t find much time for his own gadgets these days because inventors all over the country are discovering his New Inventors Club. By mail, by phone and in person they are asking for his help. Why is there such a demand? Well, to paraphrase Mark Twain on Missouri, weather, everybody talks about the troubles of the inventor but nobody ever does anything about them. Korth, very simply, is doing something! •

Which Sex is the Smarter?

Other factors being equal, men are as much as 50 percent better than women at solving complicated problems, according to Edward J. Sweeney, Stanford University research psychologist. It took Dr. Sweeney two years and multitudes of tests given to male and female students to arrive at this conclusion.

Intelligence is a combination of many special abilities, says Dr. Sweeney, and problem-solving is only one of them. As for general intelligence, he adds, there has never been any demonstrable superiority of either sex at any age.

To give the sexes an even-up start, Dr. Sweeney first gave intelligence tests to a large number of men and women students. Using the scores, he selected groups of 50 to 100 matched in general intelligence.

The matched-intelligence groups then took a new battery of tests. Men won out in problem-solving, though women—as expected—showed superiority in verbal abilities.

At this point the sexes were re-matched for mathematical, mechanical, or visualization abilities—those in which men have previously shown themselves superior to women.

The ensuing tests demonstrated that these re-matched groups were about equal in problem-solving ability as long as the problems were simple and straightforward. But as the problems grew more complicated, the men once more took a commanding lead.

The problem complications involved “restructuring,” as psychologists put it. In such a problem the obvious means of solution won’t work, and an entirely new way must be found.

Sex differences in problem-solving have been reported previously as byproducts of other psychological experiments. But Dr. Sweeney’s experiments were the first ever designed specifically to test men’s problem-solving abilities against women’s.

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IT’S NEW!

ENGLISHMAN’S DOME is a glass castle; architect Hugh Pope and wife relax under glass. Modest Crystal Palace went up in two weeks for cost of $1,400.

CITROEN station wagon, one of the French firm’s new line of utility autos, holds lots of cargo for a smallish vehicle. The rear seats face inwards, fold into floor very cleverly. Below: true French chic.

GERMAN UMIAK, really a planked boat with a cosy canvas cover and ten snug hatches for the paddlers, carries happy Hamburgers up the Elbe.

BRITISH CABIN CRUISER, built for export to the world’s $14,000-up boat markets, has twin Diesels, 24-hour range, has passed tough sea trials.

MICKEY MOUSE HELMET worn by deckman aboard supercarrier USS Ranger contains radio on which he receives orders from ship’s tower.

LIE-DOWN BIKE, a Swedish invention, is supposedly great for lazy cyclists. David Hallin, bike’s inventor, demonstrates. Note luggage rack.

ROLLING OFFICE for big shots has typewriter in dashboard. Girl Friday sits up front in Simca Presidence. designed to fit the needs of execs.

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White Elephant Party

There is only one drawback to this kind of affair: you may get back a worse eyesore than one you gave.

GETTING rid of unwanted household articles and having a good time to boot, was the purpose of a recent White Elephant Party celebrated by a group of Camden, S. C., Du Pont plant employes and their wives. The reason for such an affair is diabolically simple: find that awful gift your great-aunt Zenobia gave you a few years ago, gaily wrap it and bring it to a party where some unsuspecting soul will win it. There is only one drawback to this plan: what you win may prove to be more of a white elephant than what you gave!

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Patents ~ Nutty or Novel

Maybe you don’t believe that the inventors of the devices shown on these pages went to the trouble of securing patents on them, but they did, every one of them.

Hurricane Cable Anchors Houses to Ground to Resist Storms.

WHAT couldn’t have been done for the leaning tower of Pisa with the anchoring cable shown in the drawing above! Too bad the idea was patented about 400 years too late to do the leaning tower any good— and in the meantime it went right on leaning and got itself famous, being the originator of that now famous stunt. Almost any old farm has a barn or house which is stealing the leaning tower’s stuff, and this anchoring cable is just what they need to take the leanness out of them, or at least that was the idea of the inventor who patented the device. He claims that his cable will hold a house tight to mother earth in the severest storm, and no doubt he’s right, but what house wants to be held down in a hurricane when all the other houses are (lying away to play? Put one of these little cables in your home and you can go to sleep nights secure in the knowledge that you will awake in the morning without finding yourself blown into the next state.

Inventor’s Machine “Bells Mouse” and Scares Rodents Out of House.

THE old nursery tale about the belled cat who was to scare the mice away must have inspired the inventor of the contrivance shown at the right. All the mouse or rat has to do is poke his neck through the trap after the piece of cheese and presto! two halves of the trap come apart and release a circular spring around the rodent’s neck, to which a bell is attached. When the mouse runs home all the rest of the family run away quick, because mice don’t like bells; they think they’re rung by ghosts, or something. The lonesome mouse with the bell who is left is quickly tracked to his lair by the tinkling sound he gives forth at every step, and when he is slain with shotgun or revolver the house will be entirely mouseless. Of course, if the mice should happen to enjoy the sound of the bell and decide to start an orchestra, the expense of furnishing them all with belled collars will be excessive.

Kites Hold Mart-Carrying Cables Suspended in Mid-Air.

WAY back before the day of the airplane—in 1889, to be exact—a Massachusetts inventor patented a device which he described in his application as “An Improved Aerial Apparatus for Navigating the Air and for Towing Vessels and Vehicles Over Water and Land.” The picture at the right shows the novel outfit anchored to the shore while its cables extend out over a wrecked vessel from which it is rescuing the poor sailors who ran on a rock. This is only one of the numerous jobs at which the apparatus is claimed to excel. Another use is pictured in the upper inset drawing, taken from the patent application itself, in which a trusting pair of adventurers are riding in a carriage suspended from the cables while the kites pull them across the Atlantic. Note the canoes on the bottom of the platform to keep the men afloat in case of a forced landing. Balloons on the topmost row of kites are supposed to lift the kites into the air, after which everything is in the hands of nature. One trouble with this form of navigation is that the passengers have to go in the same direction the wind blows. But the device isn’t only good for carrying passengers over water; it is supposed to tow ships, pull people over the ice on a sled, tow passengers across country on a drag, and help ship captains navigate their boats. Imagine Lindy hopping the Atlantic in one of these rigs!

Folding Metal Clamp Holds Receiver to Ear in Lazy’s Man’s Telephone.

PEOPLE whose conversation over telephones is more or less confined to listening, such as hubby receiving a call from friend wife, will appreciate the advantage of the patented receiver clamp shown in the pictures at left. When the receiver is lifted from its hook it is automatically held in place beside the ear by a bracket which leaves both hands free. A clerk can talk over the phone, make change, write up orders and scratch his head all at the same time with this rig. With a phonograph record to say “yes” every two minutes, this telephone is practically a perfect machine for taking long distance orders from the boss.

Speed Indicator to Aid Typist

A WORD tabulator has been devised for attachment to typewriters to assist operators in watching the speed with which they are typing. Ella Freer, school novice typing champion of New York state, is shown below using a wood tabulator attached to her machine as she practiced for the international typewriting contest at Toronto.

CIGARETTE LIGHTED BY GLOW

No larger than a woman’s lipstick, a new mystery cigarette lighter works without flame or electricity. The smoker simply holds his cigarette against the porous top and inhales several times and this lights the smoke. The secret is that a blended fuel containing methyl alcohol is thus drawn through a porous pill containing platinum. Catalytic action, similar to that of platinum gas-stove lighters, causes the pill to glow and light the cigarette. Wind cannot interfere with the use of the lighter, which works if a cotton pad is kept saturated with fuel.

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BIGGER THAN TEXAS

By William E. Warne

Ass’t Secretary of the Interior Warne presents a first-hand story of Alaskan opportunities and introduces some pioneers of 1948

ALASKA, which used to be thought of as a land of perpetual ice and snow, has suddenly assumed great importance to the United States because it is the crossroads of the air age.

Intercontinental routes, via the Great Circle and over the top of the Pole, are already using Alaska as the hub of their wheel. This giant “hub” covers 586,400 square miles which makes it considerably bigger than Texas which has a total area of 267,339 square miles.

With eyes focused sharply on Alaska for the first time since the Gold Rush of 1897, the American people have suddenly discovered that their former appraisals of this vast, beautiful, empty land were wrong. It is not a land of perpetual ice and snow, but a land of opportunity, albeit one that challenges even rugged men in the process of making a place for themselves. Strangely enough, the great glaciers and the tremendous winter snows that gave Alaska its reputation are confined largely to the mountains and the rough coastal areas of the south. The vast heartland of Alaska, stretching from the Kenai Peninsula up Cook Inlet to Anchorage, through the Susitna, Matanuska and other river valleys, down the Nenana and Tanana Valleys to Fairbanks and to the Yukon and out the Alaska Highway to Tok Junction, has many areas of mild summers with long golden days and fair growing seasons for crops.

Alaska is a varied land. Superimpose a map of Alaska drawn to the same scale on a map of the 48 United States and it extends from South Carolina to southern California and from the Mexican border to northern Minnesota. In land area alone, it is one fifth the size of the 48 states. It is readily seen that such a great area spread in peninsulas and islands over so vast a part of the world would not be all alike. Southeastern Alaska is a land of heavy rainfall, great beauty, fiords cutting into high mountains near the sea, entrancing spruce-covered hills and slopes, quiet, protected waters among the islands and the shoreland, glaciers that come down to the sea, a land of fishing and hunting where boats substitute entirely for roads, and the airplane is the only means of quick transportation.

Central Alaska, the heartland, is not so very different from the northern plains states. Its climate is colder and it is cut here and there by high mountains. Otherwise, much of it resembles northern Michigan and Minnesota. Here Alaska’s only railroad serves its biggest cities—Anchorage and Fairbanks, and the Alaska Highway comes up from the south through Canada to join the territory’s only other important road, the Richardson Highway, near Fairbanks where the railroad meets the great rivers of the north and boats begin to ply the Tanana and Yukon Rivers toward the Arctic. The great airdromes of the future will be located in the heartland, and here most of the farming opportunities will be found.

The Aleutian Islands, of less than fond memory on the part of many a GI, are different again. They are isolated, stormbound, rough, and at times forbidding. Their climate is not extreme, but the grasses that grow lush on their slopes are not pastured because there is no means to get the wool, hides and meat that the livestock would produce out to market.

Bristol Bay, Kuskokwim Bay, Norton Sound and the Kotzebue Sound on the western face of Alaska are surrounded by low delta lands. Bristol Bay is famous for its salmon and other fisheries, but except for the short fishing season, the lands that front on the Bering Sea have little activity. The Eskimos trap furs and fish here, and trade with them is important. Mines are in operation in some of the hills for such rare metals as tin, platinum and gold. Other minerals found in the region include iron, nickel, zinc, silver, tin, lead and chromium.

The last region of Alaska is the Arctic slope and Colville River Basin. It is low, bleak and little used, although traces of oil have sent the Navy scurrying over a vast region, prospecting on a reserve set up for it.

Alaska’s greatest need is population and the biggest opportunity for people who want to go there will be found in connection with businesses and activities that will contribute to the support and comfort of many people in the territory. There are problems to be overcome, transportation facilities need to be increased and improved, good housing is required, much exploration for minerals and testing of soils for agricultural needs to precede the final stage of development. These problems are being studied and worked on by local, territorial and federal officials. They will be solved in time.

Meantime, many sturdy individuals have pitted themselves against this hard land. The population of 75,000 before the war now exceeds 90,-000, and Anchorage is among the fastest growing cities in the world.

Here are some thumbnail case histories: Robert Thompson went to Alaska in 1940 as an officer in “Castner’s Cut-Throats” What he saw wasn’t so different from his home in Moccasin, Mont. After the war, he and Aden Winkelman, his sergeant in Army days, built themselves Anchorage’s most modern restaurant. It has been doing good business since the spring of 1947.

Dennis Fenno went to Alaska first as a fisherman when a young man and spent a summer or two on Bristol Bay. During the war, he served as a bomber pilot in Italy, but went back to Dillingham, a fishing village, and bought a half interest in the Dillingham Air Service—assets, one plane. He and two other former Army pilots now have three planes operating between Anchorage and Dillingham, carrying freight and passengers. There are many such stories of bush-line flying, because the airline is doing the job in Alaska that the covered wagon, the pony express and the early railroad did in opening up the West. Before air travel was introduced in Alaska, the interior was closed to all except the hardiest adventurers who braved sub-zero weather and starvation in their search for gold. Dog teams were the principal means of transportation.

In 1945, Vere Savage bought a small cannery at Ninilchik. A series of small disasters put him $17,000 in debt. He told some young veterans at Anchorage of his trouble, including L. T. Gardner, whose home is Grants Pass, Ore.; Jack Schriber, formerly of Milwaukee; Peter Harris, Alaska-born; Walter Keck of Carter, S. D.; Ralph Mitchel of Craig-mont, Idaho; Mike Rogers of Scarsdale, N. Y.; and Bill Fitzgerald of Kalamazoo, Mich. They formed a partnership, moved the cannery to Kasilof, rebuilt it, and late in the season of 1947 commenced packing “Polar Sea Foods.” It looked as though their operation would be a success the first year.

Dan Lappala went to Alaska to help build Army facilities during the war and then joined the Seabees. He stayed at Anchorage after receiving his discharge and established a nursery. He bought stock from the Midwest and, though he says the going has been hard, is now receiving orders for Alaska birch and other products to export to “outside” buyers. (Alaskans refer to other parts of the U.S. as “outside.”) Lappala says that he is in business to stay.

Jack Conright served two years at Fort Richardson near Anchorage. When he was discharged, he went into the furniture business and persuaded his brother Curly, an experienced furniture maker, to come from Tacoma, Wash. He now makes furniture in the basement of his store and has found a profita- ble sideline in making seats, cushions and covers for the many jeeps which swarm Alaska.

E. J. Fortier took over the Weekly Times in Anchorage, renamed it The Forty-Ninth Star to emphasize the drive for statehood, and is building up circulation in central Alaska.

In addition, men are finding their livelihood in teaching and the other professions, in flying tourists to fishing lakes, in raising chickens, operating dairies, and scores of other jobs including farming.

Homesteading is occupying increasing numbers. Carving a farm out of the Alaskan woods is not child’s play, but many are managing to win through. There are now 450 successful farms in the Matanuska Valley where the government project that won much comment a dozen years ago established 200 farms. This is one of the best farming areas. There are still some lands available for development there.

In summary, opportunities in Alaska are as varied as the land itself, but all of them involve hard work under difficult conditions because Alaska is not an easy land. The people who are required to populate it, however, will be found. Alaska, which has been a U.S. possession since 1867, is on its way to becoming a state and its great growth is immediately before it.

Triple Magnifier for Jewelers

HERALDED as the first improvement in the familiar jeweler’s magnifying eyeglass in 50 years, this triple lens magnifier has been developed by a Hollywood inventor. The lenses are hinged on top, can be used independently or in combination. Result: choice of magnifying powers of two, five, and eight times respectively.

Entire outfit fits over ordinary spectacles.

Machines Help Map Makers

Topographical maps, many of which are sold to the public for as little as ten cents each, are made on specially designed machines costing $30,000 each. There are only three of the machines, which are known as aerocartographs, in the country and they are operated by the U. S. Geological Survey Bureau in Washington, D. C.

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I Rode on a HIGHWAY OF DIAMONDS

MI’s correspondent visits a fantastic land of precious jewels in South-West Africa.

By Henry Albert Phillips

WARNING!

You are approaching diamondiferous territory. TURN BACK! Trespassers are liable to suffer bodily harm, a fine of 500 pounds or five years in gaol.

De Beers Consolidated, Ltd.

THAT’S the sign which greeted me a couple of miles outside of Luderitz in South-West Africa. Inside the ominous -looking gates was the diamond country— soil and sand laden with precious gems like almonds in a Hershey bar. I had imagined what the land of diamonds was like and I was about to see for myself at last.

For five days I had traveled on one of the world’s worst railways going from Johannesburg across the Namib desert to Luderitz. There, I was picked up by old Schweiger, a company hired-hand who was driving the car the De Beers people had sent to fetch me to the mines at the other end of the diamond fields at the mouth of the Orange River.

We came to a gate in the high wire fence and an armed guard stepped out of a little house. He turned to Schweiger as though I weren’t there. ”Credentials? Where did he come from? What does he want?” For a moment I thought he was going to turn the German police dogs on me that were sniffing and snarling around us.

Finally I signed a document waiving all rights and claims to indemnity in case of ” accident and the gate was unlocked. As it creaked open our car shot through into the forbidden land of precious gems.

Disappointing, I thought, as we passed over the broad desert road. The land was as bald of vegetation as sandpaper—but red-hot sandpaper.

“You know, my friend,” Schweiger said, “you are now driving over a highway paved with diamonds. This ground is filthy with gems and when the road was paved it was far too much trouble even to attempt to separate the diamonds from the gravel!”

Suddenly, Schweiger stopped the car and jumped out. I followed. He picked up a crystal stone the size of a prune pit and placed it in my hand. “Six carats. Pure white. Over the counter in London it’d bring 5000 pounds.”

My palm itched. The tall stories were true! It was easy to see now why they had all that barbed wire, armed guards and man-eating dogs. I noticed Schweiger watching me closely so I let the $20,000 diamond fall back into the sand like a fish into the sea.

We got back into the car. I pulled my helmet down and squinted at the most desolate and poverty-stricken stretch of land I had ever seen. So this was the kind of hell hole where they mined those precious stones that beautiful women are so proud of!

“Ten thousand square miles of caked earth,” Schweiger was spouting, “studded with diamonds.”

“Why don’t they have an army of diggers, shoveling out the stones?” I asked.

“If they unloaded the diamonds on the market at that rate, they wouldn’t be worth sixpence. These alluvial fields threatened to disrupt the whole market some time ago and ruin De Beers. So they leased the entire area and regained control of 95 per cent of the world output. They control all sources and sales—and thus control the price of every carat Did you know it is illegal for an individual in South West Africa even to possess an uncut or unset stone?” - We drove along the ragged roadbed and I looked about me at the great stretches of monotonous sand, the blue mountains to the south and the violent green sea. Schweiger continued, “I guess you can’t blame the natives for being superstitious about diamonds. They call them ‘devil stones’ because they think there’s a devil in each stone that’ll bring someone bad luck.”

“I’d take the chance,” I said.

“I had a chum in the Camel Corps, once,” Schweiger went on. .”Rum got him down and he became an illicit diamond buyer, called I. D. B. here. He had a racket he worked with the natives who lorried in our supplies. One crew smuggled in a dog on every trip. Somehow he was fed a piece of meat studded with diamonds and then let loose at the gate. When he wandered outside the area, he was shot for what he had inside of him. Of course, the law caught up with my chum and now he’s out of jail and a beachcomber instead.”

“Living off his profits?”

Schweiger disregarded me. “Two per cent of all the diamonds produced probably slip through and get into the hands of I. D. B.’s.”

The sun was getting low and nubbins of green grass and faded bushes began to mark the roadway. The muddy waters of the Orange River were near. Finally we reached the central works of the Orange River Mouth Alluvial Diamond Fields.

About 350 ” ~ ~ white people and twice as many natives make up the population. They’re all subject to daily searches, and constant sifting and sorting of their belongings. Their only human contact with the outside world is the lorry caravan which brings in supplies to enable them to keep up the search for more diamonds. And even the lorry men keep their distance for fear of arousing suspicion.

The superintendent, Schweiger and I set out in a jeep at daybreak for the mine diggings. We visited several pits, each approximately 10 miles square. The whole system has been standardized. First, they dig a “prospect” trench straight across the sand from the ocean to the sand dunes. Twenty white bosses and 70 Negro diggers toil on that job for three months or more. It may turn out to be a dud or it may be worth a million dollars—there’s no telling.

“Prospectors first found diamonds high up in those mountains,” explained the superintendent. “But through all these centuries, the Orange River has been gnawing and tearing through the diamond-bearing formation, bringing the treasure down here. This whole coast has been plastered with six feet of sludge, pulverized rock and debris, studded with precious stones. Listen!” he pointed solemnly out to sea. “I’ll bet there are millions of carats out there on the bottom of the ocean.”

Several hundred natives were digging in gravel. Each gang had its own sieve or vibrating machine into which shovelfuls of soil were tossed. Screenings were brought to a mine boss for a first sorting. While we watched, the super picked out seven carats.

Promising gravel is transported all the way back to the main works for the experts to look over. They figure on one carat out of every 3-1/2 cubic yards of matter and a hand-full of diamonds from 700 tons of sand.

One of the natives gave a loud yell. “He’s found a big one,” said the superintendent. “He isn’t allowed to touch it, only point and yell.” The digger had discovered a ten-carat stone worth at least $25,000. He got a bonus of 10 cents a carat for finding it.

One native had once “pointed” 58 carats in a single day—or $5.80 worth for him. It was a fortune to the man for his wage out there in the broiling desert is ninepence per day for the first year. If he lives through the second year of devastating sunshine and lung-destroying dust, his pay is raised to two shillings and sixpence per day.

“I should think these natives would be tempted now and then to swallow a diamond or two,” I remarked.

“Sure, they’re always swallowing them, but we keep a watchful eye open. If castor oil fails, then an operation will succeed. Last year one worker swallowed 21 stones valued at $20,000. Unfortunately, the operation killed him.”

Every day at 4:30 p. m. the take in diamonds is brought in to be counted, weighed and registered. The brass, pint-sized cylinders are unlocked and the contents dumped in separate heaps on a table with a raised edge.

Every stone over five carats must be given an identity and character. Its history must be accounted for until it passes into the hands of a retail customer. The average yield of Orange River Mouth is 16,000 carats a month.

Millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds lying around loose give you a queasy feeling. It’d be so easy to pick up a few thousand dollars’ worth and hide them in the heel of your shoe, the lining of your coat—you think of all the possibilities. But can you get away with it?

Before you leave, your traveling things— everything you don’t have on your back—are sent ahead to the examination station at the gate. If you are a native you are detained for one week in the pen and given a knockout purge.

The day we pulled out, I was even suspecting myself. Just before we reached the gate, Schweiger stopped the car before a baked-brick building that resembled a mausoleum. A little man with a mortician’s smile appeared and invited us in for a cup of tea. As I drained my cup, he rose, rubbed his chubby hands together and pointed to the back room. “I trust you won’t mind—just a formality you know,” he said gleefully.

For a moment I was afraid he was going to operate, just to make sure I was not getting away with a bellyful of diamonds. But, no. They have devised a more humane way of peering into internal hiding places. I was helped into a sheet, stretched out on a cold metal slab—and X-rayed.

As we drove along the winding desert road after the De Beers gate had closed behind us I thought of the civilization which treasures the pieces of stone mined by those sweating workers at Orange River. Suddenly, the wheels of the car went over a rock. Almost hopefully, I looked out of the window, half-expecting to see a large diamond lying in the road. But of course it was strictly a non-precious rock. The fabulous highway of diamonds was securely locked in behind those carefully-guarded gates. •

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Coo-Coo Concoctors Cop Cash

The popular Coo-Coo Contraptions contest closes with this issue to make room for other big contests. Winners in Contest No. 7 are announced below. See what you think of their fool devices!

CONCOCTORS of Coo-Coo contraptions crashed through consistently in copping crates of currency for their prize-winning ideas in Contest No. 7, just ended. (After writing the above sentence, the Coo-Coo contest editor can easily be convinced that his monthly task of studying thousands of Coo-Coo contraptions has affected his mind some way or other.) Anyhow, Coo-Coo Contraptions Contest No. 9, announced in the July issue, will be the last of the series. One of the most popular contests staged by Modern Mechanics magazine, the Coo-Coo Contraptions have had to give way to leave room for other big contests the editors are planning. All entries for Contest No. 9 must be received before Aug. 1, 1929. Contributions received after that date can not be considered.

Prizes in Contest No. 9 will total $50, distributed as follows: First prize, $25; second prize, $10; and five third prizes of $3 each. In case of a tie for any of the prizes, the full amount of the award will be paid to each tying contestant. Manuscripts will not be returned. You do not have to be a subscriber of Modern Mechanics magazine to enter this contest.

Now for the pleasant task of awarding the prize money to the lucky winners of Contest No. 7. Raymond Stephens of 203 East 18th Street, Davenport, Iowa, breaks the tape first and wins the first prize award of $25 for his Coo-Coo auto horn—”The Best in the State,” he subtitles it, and the editor agrees that it ought to be a doggone good horn for getting results. The squirrel, cat and dog can be purchased at any animal store, with full directions for use on the outside of every package. The auto horn is so simple that you can attach it yourself in less than five minutes, or any mechanic should be glad to do the job for 25 cents.

Second prize money—ten dollars, folks; step up and count it—goes to Wallace Nordvall, 529 North First Ave.

East, Duluth, Minn., for his soup cooler. This is a device which folks too well versed in etiquette to blow on the hot liquid have long needed. Mr. Nordvall’s arrangement not only appeals on account of its mechanical ingenuity, but also because the method by which it accomplishes its results cannot offend the most finically minded. An obvious advantage of the soup cooler is that it is automatically set in operation when the soup is served—no buttons to press, no levers to pull, no gears to shift. The expense of replacing the balloon which is destroyed each time the cooler starts to work will be found to be quite nominal, considering the results to be obtained.

Five prizes of $3 each were distributed to the following: Alexander M. Adams, 313 Reed Street, Clearfield, Penn., for his Patent Mouse Eradicator; E. G. Machauer, 1033 Jena Street, New Orleans, La., for his Traffic Violator Signal; Albert Bushell, 3671 Pt. Grey Road, Vancouver, B. C., for his Self-Watering Flower Pot; A. T. Abbott, Jr., Trevett, Maine, for his Fool-Proof Thief Frightener; and F. N. Sebaut, 804 Seventh Street, N. E., Canton, Ohio, for his Cigaret Lighter.

To all of these prize winners, and to the hundreds of others whose contraptions just failed to place “in the money,” the Coo-Coo Editor extends his sincerest congratulations on the ingenuity displayed. Coo-Coo Contraptioning seems to be the popular American sport, judging from the entries which roll into this office every month.

In submitting your entry to the final contest, No. 9, which closes Aug. 1, bear in mind that the simpler and funnier your coo-coo idea is, the better its chance of winning a prize. Involved and long drawn out arrangements are not what is desired. Try to design your contraption so that it can be drawn compactly in one picture by our artists. The first prize winner on this page will give you a good idea of what is wanted. It is not necessary for you to make a finished drawing of your invention unless you so desire, although a sketch will be helpful if you can enclose one. A clearly written explanation of how your idea works is essential. Let’s make this concluding contest the best one yet. Sharpen your pencils, fans, and get busy!