Mobile Power Plant
GAS-TURBINE power plants on rails have been conceived by Allis-Chalmers engineers as emergency units to be used when power plants fail or disaster disables transmission lines. Still in the blueprint stage, the turbine generators mounted on railway trucks for rapid movement will be built in 3000 and 6000-kilowatt units, to operate as a sole source of electric power or to be synchronized with an existing power system. Burning fuel oil, the gas turbines will be serviced by a separate railway tank car, although the smaller model will carry sufficient fuel to operate for six hours. The turbine unit will be coupled with a 3600-r.p.m. generator through a reduction gear. If necessary, the mobile plant could be installed by only two men and operated by one.

This guy sells them, but they don’t look nearly as nice.

License Tag in Miniature Identifies Auto Keys

A metal tag stamped out as a miniature reproduction of your automobile license plates is attached by a chain to a novel key ring designed to hold car keys. Tiny copies of any individual license plate of any state may be obtained. The identifying tags are especially useful where a number of sets of keys to different cars are kept in one place, as in a public garage.

Gas from Sewage Waste Runs City Power Plant

SEWAGE that costs large cities tremendous sums each year can be turned into a source of power equivalent to thousands of tons of coal! The waste now dumped into rivers or shipped to sea may be used to run factories or to light buildings!

That conversion of sewage into power is possible has been proved conclusively by the city of Birmingham, England. There a suction gas engine of 20 brake horsepower has been successfully driven by the gases given off by sewage sludge.

On the basis of the Birmingham experiments, an American city that must now pay for the disposal of 400,000 tons of sewage sludge a year might produce 320,000,000 cubic feet of gas suitable for heat and power, or, in terms of energy, 16,000,000 horsepower hours at 20 cubic feet per brake horsepower.

The apparatus for producing gas from sewage consists of two sludge digestion tanks in which the sewage is allowed to ferment. The gases given off are composed of from 25 to 75 per cent of methane, or marsh gas.

A gas engine of the usual type will run on sewage gas without adjustment of the valves. Sewage gas has a higher calorific value than some illuminating gas, averaging about 650 thermal units to the cubic foot, as against 550.

The Birmingham engine runs about six hours a day and is used to operate a centrifugal sludge pump that moves the wet sludge from the gas-generating tank to the drying grounds. In this process a small proportion of the waste material produces enough power to run the pumps of the sewage disposal plant. If all the material were used, there would probably be enough gas available to light the city.

STOVEPIPE PANTS SAVE FISHERMEN FROM SNAKES
So richly stocked with fish is the Deschutes River, in central Oregon, that sportsmen facetiously say one must hide behind a tree to bait a hook. Unhappily, the region also abounds in rattlesnakes. To invade this angler’s paradise in safety, fishermen have adopted the ingenious expedient of donning tin pants fashioned from stovepipes, as seen in the photograph at the left. The metal leggings are reported to have proved successful in protecting the fishermen from the fangs of rattlers.

Toe Preview will eliminate guesswork when salesmen fit kiddies’ shoes with master sizes made with transparent vamps of Vinylite. Developed by Step Masters, they’re supplied to dealers in full sets of half sizes. Vinylite is Bake-lite’s name for transparent vinyl plastic.

CHINESE WINDMILL WATERS FARM
Adapting an Oriental idea for raising water for his own needs and to irrigate his fields, a California farmer has constructed the curious apparatus shown in the accompanying photographs. Power from a windmill, transmitted through gears, revolves a spiral-shaped tube of pipe open at both ends. The outside end dips into a water-filled ditch at each revolution. Water is thus picked up, and runs by gravity around the spiral to the hub as the wheel revolves. An opening in the hub dis-charges the water into a trough four feet above the level in the ditch, giving a sufficient lift for the irrigation purposes desired.

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HOMEMADE HYDROELECTRIC PLANT LIGHTS HOUSES AND RUNS RADIO

Constructed of junk parts at a total cost of $20, a homemade hydroelectric power plant is supplying current on the farm of William E. Howell, Decatur Island, Wash. The water wheel is built up on half of a rear automobile axle, and the two-foot, V-shaped buckets are constructed of cedar planks. A thousand gallons of water a minute run down a 217-foot flume from a small creek and strike the buckets after a five-foot drop, spinning a one-fourth-horsepower, thirty-two-volt motor of washing machine type which is used as a generator. The electricity thus produced by the “backyard” hydroelectric station is sufficient to light two houses, the barn and outbuildings, to operate an electric washer, sewing machine, vacuum cleaner and sheep-shearing machine, and to run the builder’s amateur radio station, with which he talks to the mainland.

Glasses Let Color-Blind See Red Light

TO ENABLE color-blind motorists to determine whether a traffic light is red or green, a New York City optical firm has just introduced special glasses. The spectacles are made in two sections, the upper consisting of a segment of dark-red filter glass, and the lower of clear crown glass, although optically ground eye-correction lenses may be employed for those who ordinarily wear glasses when driving. With the spectacles on, the color-blind driver looks through the red filter section of the lenses as he approaches a traffic light. If he sees any light at all in the traffic standard, he knows that it must be either red or amber, the “stop” or “caution” signal, since the filter blocks out all rays emanating from the green “go-ahead” light, while admitting the others. Since eye specialists estimate that one person in every twenty-five is colorblind, the filter glasses should make an important contribution to the problem of increasing traffic safety.

Turntable Eases Garaging

Now Frank Enos of Sausalito, Calif., just presses a button to solve what had been a difficult problem. He lives on the side of a hill, with a garage 30 feet below the level of the road and at the end of a 150-foot driveway. Backing up the hill on wet mornings was sometimes a dangerous chore, until Enos devised a turntable and installed it just before the entrance to the garage. Pressing a button puts a 1/2-horsepower geared motor to work revolving the table after Enos backs out, and he drives forward up the hill. The turntable deck is supported by 4 by 12-inch girders and 2 by 12-inch joists which are set on eight concrete piers.

Bag Inside a Can
New kind of pressurized package keeps product and propellant separate You’ve probably used hundreds of aerosol cans to dispense everything from shaving foams to vermouth with astonishing ease.

But so far, these pressurized cans have only been able to dish out sprays and foams. Now science has perfected a new type of pressurized package that will let you dispense more viscous substances, like gels, greases, and caulks, with aerosol convenience.

A new shaving preparation called Edge, by Johnson Wax, is one of the first products to be packaged in this second-generation pressurized can. Unlike other whisker-wilters, which emerge as foam, Edge oozes out as a gel—but foams into lather on your face.

What keeps Edge a pressurized gel? It is stored in a plastic bag within the can and thus separate from the propellant, whereas in aerosols it is dissolved. The propellant pressurizes the bag to squeeze out its contents. And the bag folds up until all the contents are gone.

LIGHT KNEE REST HOLDS BOOK OR MAGAZINE
Reading is made painless for the most comfort-loving of mortals by a new book rest that clamps lightly over the reader’s knee. It not only supports the book’s weight but holds it open and keeps the place. Extension arms unfold to hold a magazine or a sheet of music. The user, sitting in an easy-chair, has both hands free to make notes, smoke, or eat.

ICE BOX FOR BOTTLED DRINKS MAKES TEMPTING DISPLAY
For cooling bottled drinks, a unique ice box consisting of a number of J-shaped chutes into which bottles are placed, one flavor for each compartment, has been patented. Ice stored in the refrigerator and covering the lower part of the chutes which curve up under the storage chamber, cools the bottles as they pass through. By pressing down on the bottles turned upside down in the delivery tubes, a fresh container appears within easy reach. It is not necessary to open the box to get out a bottle and the row of bottles is visible through a glass cover.

Typewriter Keyboard On Typesetting Machine

Typists can now set type on Linotype and Intertype composing machines through the development of a keyboard that has the standard keys of a typewriter. Forty-four keys, electrically operated, fit over the 90 keys of a standard composing machine. The keyboard can be moved from one composing machine to another as there is no installation. The new keyboard is simply placed over the top of the existing keyboard and the unit is ready for use when it is plugged into an electrical outlet. The complete outfit weighs only 25-1/2 pounds.

HUMANLIKE SKELETONS POSE FOR ARTISTS

To aid students of art and medicine in studying the postures of the human body, a young German sculptor has devised skeleton puppets that can be adjusted to anypose. The figures are made of aluminum, and action of their joints is patterned after that found in the human body. Like marionettes, the puppets are manipulated into the desired attitude with the aid of strings. The illustration at the left shows the inventor of the skeleton puppets viewing a pair of his creations which show all of the bones.

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TIRE INFLATOR WORKS WITHOUT HUMAN AID

Putting air in the tires of your car should be a pleasure instead of a nuisance,according to Ellis E. White, of Los Angeles, who has just perfected an automatic tire inflator. To get air in the tires of his car, the driver need not get out from behind the wheel.

When his tires need air, he drives up a runway at the service station. He passes a box with a lever and a graduated scale, and with a touch of his hand he sets the lever to the number of pounds pressure he wishes in his tires.

At a certain point on the runway his wheels drop into a groove and close an electric contact, setting the intlator in action. Air nozzles advance from each side and press against special connections on the wheel’s hubs. Air flows into the tires. When the tire is full a bell rings and the air is shut off. To use the novel service, a car must have special air nipples that fit over the hub of his car’s wheels and have a pipe connection to the tire valve to complete the operation.

Phono Runs on Spring or AC
One drawback to the production of AC-DC-battery phonograph portables has been the lack of motors that would operate anywhere. Capitol Records, Inc., of Hollywood, combines an AC motor and a spring-drive mechanism with a three-way amplifier to get a truly portable record player.

Rear projection screen fits into briefcase

Any projector—movie, slide, filmstrip, or microfilm—can be used with this miniature fold-up screen. The “black” Plexiglass screen is eight inches square and can be comfortably viewed by six people. The Groupshow Mini’s folding hood keeps room lights from washing out the picture. Hudson Photo Industries, Irvington, N.Y. $25.

Furniture Calculator Suspends Person in Mid-Air to Determine Contours

With a simple rig that suspends a person in mid-air, furniture designers can tailor-make a chair to fit the exact body contours of the subject. Rudolph Jegrt, an art instructor in Milwaukee, Wis., invented the contour delineator, which consists of two panels of steel mesh and some steel rods. The mesh panels are mounted two feet apart. A basic chair design is envisioned, and the rods pushed through the mesh to form the contour. The subject then climbs into the “chair” and the rods are shifted to match the subject’s body lines.

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Radio Robot Squirts Out 3 a Minute

A COMPLETE radio set every 20 seconds is the production goal of this new British automatic machine known as ECME (Electronic Circuit Making Equipment). Nearing completion at the research laboratories of Sargrove Electronics, Ltd., this automaton uses the sprayed-circuit technique to do the jobs of a double line of skilled workers. Wiring mistakes are eliminated, and the machine even makes its own tests, signaling the location of any defects in the circuit.

Plastic plates are fed into each end of the two parallel rows of electronic units shown in the photograph at the top of p. 160. As the plates move down the line, all the necessary inductances, capacitors, resistors, and potentiometer tracks are “built up.” After lacquering, other units automatically insert rivets, eyelets, and studs. When two plates are joined together at the end of the line, they form a complete radio receiver except for a few parts such as electrolytic condensers, tubes, and loudspeaker, which are added by hand. It is claimed that the sets will be both lighter and sturdier than those made with wired circuits.

Many Wall Plugs Fit in One Outlet
DOUBLE and triple outlet electric plugs are no longer needed. A novel wall plug now available is of such a design that another plug can be inserted right on top of it. There is no limit to the number of extension cords that can be used on one outlet.

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Radio Amateurs to the Rescue in Florida Hurricane

During disasters radio “hams” come to the rescue. They keep in touch with lonely outposts, with explorers, arid like sentinels in the night guard against death.

by Clinton B. De Soto

WHEN a roaring hurricane swept through Florida in September, unknown amateur radio operators became heroes in the midst of death and destruction. Through howling wind and pelting rain they tapped away on their low-power transmitters when telephone, telegraph, and powerful broadcasting stations failed.

Their dots and dashes—the language of the radio amateur—hurtling through the ether flashed to the rest of the world news of the disaster and set the great task of relief into motion.

For twenty-three hours, while buildings crashed around him, Fred E. Bassett, Jr., of Eustice, Fla., described scenes of horror and gave directions for relief over his 50-watt portable transmitter, W4AKI.

In Miami, Alonzo O. Bliss, Jr., operator of W4COT picked up the messages and relayed them to Red Cross and army relief workers. Other amateurs in the hurricane area also carried on heroic work wherever it was possible to erect emergency transmitting equipment.

Death by storm, flood, earthquake, and disease is foiled by the ever-watchful radio amateurs. When other means of communications fail, they leap into the breach. Their emergency call, QRR, often restores the link of intelligence over which the work of relief and reconstruction is carried on.

All amateurs are advised to have emergency equipment in readiness for disaster. In the upstate New York flood last July amateur radio stations again came to the rescue. They sent out messages from survivors to anxious relatives outside the flood stricken area. They hunted down missing persons, lost transport planes, and sent out descriptions of road and bridge conditions in their vicinity, so that relief parties could reach the injured and marooned as quickly as possible.

When floods isolated many Nebraska towns early last summer destroying communication by telephone or telegraph, five radio amateurs, Lewis Cook, A. L. Cook, Bob Mitchell, Milan Kinsey, and Brick Early, loaded the transmitting and receiving sets of station W9FWW and the portable equipment of W9EKK on a truck and set out for the stricken area to aid in the rescue work.

At Pettygrove one of the stations was rigged up and stayed on the air continually for four days and nights handling important messages. The portable station was picked up by an airplane and flown to a hill near Oxford to establish the only means of communication in the flooded area. Later an airplane dropped a tent and other equipment to the amateurs during their long vigil.

Last spring a sleet storm swept down on Duluth, Minn., on the western tip of Lake Superior. The entire city was isolated Lights, telephones, telegraph, radio broadcasting stations, all were made useless as hundreds of telegraph poles crashed under the weight of the sleet. Radio amateurs in the city immediately offered their assistance. They reached the outside world through fellow amateurs in Wisconsin and in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

These amateurs aided railroad dispatchers in locating trains which were traveling through the area without orders in danger of serious accident; they sent out emergency calls for police and sheriffs; carried news bulletins for the press associations; and cleared important messages of the business and industrial world.

Not long ago from remote Alitak, an Alaska amateur radio flashed the urgent plea to save a life. In Seattle, early that Thursday morning, Ed Stevens, owner of amateur station W7BB, heard the call for help. He engaged in conversation with the operator at Alitak, more than 1,000 miles away. At lonely Lazy Bay on Kodiak Island, five-year-old Henry Loof lay near death with appendicitis.

Stevens described the little lad’s symptoms to Dr. A. H. Seering of Harbor View hospital, Seattle. The physician diagnosed the case, gravely warned of the danger of peritonitis.

“I can’t reach Anchorage because of bad weather,” the Alitak amateur flashed back. “Please send a message to Anchorage for help,” he pleaded.

Stevens called the United States Army Alaska Telegraph, which employs both wireless and cable, and the message was relayed through to Anchorage, a circuit of 2,000 miles. Pilot Harry Blunt at once took off through the storm with Dr. A. S. Walkowsky.

Late that afternoon they reached Lazy Bay, 400 miles from Anchorage. They were in time to save the boy’s life.

There are nearly 40,000 radio amateurs in the United States alone. These amateurs are bonded together in the American Radio Relay League.

Punch and Judy Theater Hides Camera from Children
Getting young children to pose naturally indoors for a portrait is far from easy, as many amateur photographers have discovered. If much work of this type is to be done, it pays to follow the example of successful professionals and give the children something interesting to look at. In one studio devoted to child photography, the camera is set up behind a Punch and Judy theater. The children are fascinated by the puppets and pay little or no attention to anything else, so that it is a simple matter to take their pictures.
—Lawrence Gottlieb.

Whole library in a nutshell
This latest space trick might work well with earthbound libraries. The magnifying viewer on the astronaut’s knee holds 12,000 pages of microfilmed manuals, maps, and navigation data for use in the Apollo lunar spacecraft. The film is coded and indexed so a flip of a switch puts any page on the screen in 15 seconds.

Armrest for Car
Easy-chair comfort for the car driver is provided by an adjustable armrest which hooks over the back of the front seat. The driving aid—a flexible metal bar with a sliding cushion—fits all cars. A small lever permits the foam-rubber cushion to be adjusted to the most comfortable height, then locked in place. The metal bar is covered with fabric to prevent damage to the car upholstery.

Tree Serves as Cellar
Maintaining a temperature between forty and fifty degrees F. the year ’round, the hollow trunk of a huge maple tree serves as a fruit-storage cellar for a Redmond, Wash., family. The tree cellar has room for 400 quart fruit jars.

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Machines that Pick Your Pocket – AND MAKE YOU LIKE IT! —Inside Story of the Slot Machine Racket

by WALTER A. RASCHICK

No matter how clever you are, you can’t beat the slot machine racket. If you play the game, you’ll have to reconcile yourself to seeing your nickels flowing away in a steady stream, paying tribute to the engineering brains which have designed these mechanical pick-pockets so efficiently that they can’t fail to keep half or more of the coins fed into them, giving the player nothing in return except the thrill of seeing his money vanish.

“GOSH!” you’ve probably said more than once, as the symbols halted, hesitated, and then swung tantalizingly away from the center row, “I almost got the bells that time. Watch this one” —and out of your pocket and into the slot machine goes another hard-earned nickel.

Again the wheels whirr, and as their spinning dies into a metallic clack-clack-clack, the player stands pop-eyed before the entrancing mechanism: the plums align themselves in a row, but the middle one falls back out of line, and again there is no payoff. Another nickel is played—and this time two cherries and a lemon click into place, and four five-cent coins of Uncle Sam’s vast realm trickle down the pay-out slide and fall into the money cup at the front of the machine.

“Gosh!” you chortle, with a grin as big as all outdoors, “this is more fun than I’ve had in a blue moon”—and go right on throwing good money after bad.

Probably less than one person in 10,000 really knows anything about how slot machines work, how they are designed mechanically to extract money from the public’s spacious pocket: and fewer than ten in a million really care.

Let us lift the shell off one of these mechanical pickpockets and see what makes it click to the tune of handsome profits—if robbery and profits can ethically be mentioned in the same breath.

50% of Symbols Are “Dead”

The most popular nickel slot machine in America carries the following symbols on its three reels: Gum, bell, plum, orange, cherry, lemon, and free play. Each of the three reels carries 20 symbols. The line-up of symbols on such a nickel machine selected at random, is reproduced on page 36.

This machine has been adjusted so that only every other symbol can stop in the pay-out row. Study the line-up carefully. Figure out for yourself how close, ostensibly, winning combinations come, while actually it is totally impossible for these combinations to register. Study this fascinating system closely—for it is a whole lot more economical to learn the lesson in print than it is to experiment with nickels.

Paying Ratio Can Be Changed

It is easy to see from the chart that a free play cannot possibly be won (see 16th symbol, first reel); also, the premium of 12 nickels for three plums, or for two plums and a gum, cannot ever be achieved with the adjustment as given. For transient trade such an arrangement passes detection, but for a regular clientele, the operator changes the line-up occasionally, to avert suspicion. For the small cost of fifty cents, he can procure an extra reel strip, with the symbols arranged to his own choosing. He places this new strip on the first reel, which is the key to the whole system, and presto! “Free Play” will turn up in the winning row, and a veritable shower of plums—and lemons, too, if he orders it so—will result. Some operators change the strip on their first reel as often as once a week, to keep their steady trade happy (and unknowing).

You Can’t Beat Mathematics

The machine we are describing is set on a 75-25 return basis. Out of every dollar played, approximately twenty-five cents remains in the machine. The standard schedule of “prizes” and the odds and returns on each set of symbols on the machine set 75-25 is shown on page 38.

Theoretically, out of every 1000 plays this machine will return 253 winning combinations, or a cash return of $38.40 out of every $50.00 played. This makes a theoretical cash return of $76.80 out of every $100.00 played—pretty close figuring on a transaction involving 2,000 nickels! and set to repay seventy-five cents out of every dollar played.

Bilking the Transient Trade

So cleverly has this system been figured out that the extraction of money from the player is almost a painless operation. Slot machine playing is perhaps the best (from the racketeer’s standpoint) come-on game extant. A player contributes three or four nickels without results, then out pop two nickels; in go six more, and out pop four, etc., etc. Like the mills of the gods, slot machines grind out your money slowly, but inexorably. In fact, so gradually does the player lose his money that he actually enjoys the process.

Most machines are set on the 75-25 basis, but in outlying communities, where transients and tourists comprise the bulk of the trade, operators have machines which take as much as seventy cents out of every dollar played. Recently, when “times got tougher” — or should we suppose the sucker public is getting wiser, and fewer are playing? — operators in the Northwest changed the ratio to as high as 10-90. Such an exorbitant ratio in favor of the operator (10c is paid, out of every dollar played; 90c remains in the machine) is used only to bilk transient trade.

Chicken shacks, wayside beer “joints,” and off-the-beaten-track gasoline service stations are the “spots” where these low percentage machines flourish. Obviously, steady customers would soon become aware of such a juicy “cut” for the operator, and stop playing.

The casual slot machine player, who never gives the “game” serious thought, is content to “feed the kitty” whenever he does play, feeling—as he loses—that he is probably playing in ill luck, having just followed a luckier player who has drained the machine of its “gravy.” And when this same casual player deposits, for once in his lifetime, one solitary nickel and receives the jackpot (an accumulation of nickels—general 1% of the total deposits from one jackpot pay-out to the next —which pays out when its chamber becomes filled: usually amounting to from $5.00 to $12.00, depending upon the type of machine), he brays as loudly as the operator wails. But it’s only a fake wail, never fear. The casual player in his enthusiasm and the operator in his feigned grief, both make so much noise about it that the operator’s “loss” is soon more than compensated by the contributions from other optimistic sheep.

Machines Designed for Easy Play

There are many different styles of slot machines. Some are operated with nickels, others with dimes, some with quarters, and —in the higher-class resorts and exclusive clubs—even with silver dollars! No class, it seems, is immune from the lure of the clicking reels. Slum neighborhoods give nickel and dime devices a vigorous play. Most clubs have nickel and dime machines, and at least one quarter mechanical pickpocket. The exclusive winter and summer resorts, and almost every big-time gambling casino, have their batteries of dollar machines.

Yes, there are many styles in slot machines, but they’re all run on the same (lack of) principle; that is, their mechanisms are similar. They’re purposely made easy to play. You simply step up to the innocent-looking lure and put a nickel in the slot at the top of the machine. Then you reach out hopefully and grasp the shiny, attractive lever at the right side of the contraption. Pull the lever forward, as lightly or as briskly as you will. Whrrrr hum the three pictured reels, spinning merrily.

The speed with which they spin depends upon the force you use in pulling the lever forward. Once in a while you’ll jerk the lever ever so gently—and find yourself figuratively deluged in a shower of nickels. So you’ll jerk the lever gently again. But the gentle touch is no better than the robust pull. You’ll discover that in the long run, long before you’ve lost your last nickel. It just doesn’t make any difference how you pull that lever: the machine wasn’t made to be beat.

Speed of Reel Doesn’t Affect Pay-out

While it appears to be mechanically possible to beat the “game” any “number of times in succession, it just can’t be done. That little old set screw shown you in the photographs will foil you. That’s the jinx to many a breadwinner’s fond hopes as he plays his last dollar’s worth of nickels in a futile effort to win back that fifteen or twenty dollars he’s just let slip away from him.

The hand lever sets the reels in motion and that pesky old set screw slips past the points on the reel stop star and finally, as the reel’s spinning dies down, fastens itself in one of the ten notches on the reel stop star. Since there are ten points and ten notches on each of the three reel-stop stars (one controlling each reel), it is certain and immutable that only ten of the twenty symbols on each reel can ever stop in the pay-out row.

Obviously, those symbols opposite the points in the reel stop stars can never stop in the payout row; only the ten symbols in each reel which parallel the open notches in the reel stop star can do that. As the speed in the spinning of one reel may vary with the speed of each of the other two reels, different combinations of symbols in the pay-out row usually turn up in successive pulls of the lever.

Although slot machines are legally taboo in most communities throughout the United States, it is quite generally an accepted fact that the authorities are lax in regard to their operation. Owners of machines, usually political powers in their communities, shrewdly insinuate themselves into the favor of church and fraternal organizations by donating the use of several machines at bazaars, lawn, card, and house parties, ice cream socials, and the like, and forego sharing any part of the moneys taken in. Treasuries swell beautifully, as a result, and when complaints later pour into the police chief’s office against rampant gambling in his city, the machine owners contact their church and fraternal friends, and the “heat” is forthwith turned off.

Slot Machines That Steal the Rent

In St. Paul, Minnesota, where a new city administration took office on June 7, 1932, orders were given throughout the city (an earlier grand jury investigation resulted in clearing the county of slot machines) for store owners and club concessionaries to take down the machines. Less than a week passed before barbers, confectioners, beer flat operators, and other small commercial fry started protests by the score for the return of slot machines. These individuals, business being depressed as it is, suffered sorely from the lack of that $3.00 daily profit which their slot machines had averaged.

In many cases, slot machines take in enough to pay the rent. And yet only 50% of the machine’s “take” goes to the store operator; the other half goes to the machine owner, who usually owns them in large numbers and places them helter skelter at choice “spots” throughout his police-subsidized territory. These owners, usually politically influential, spend most of their time making contacts with “the right people.” When their supply of money runs low, they make the rounds of their “spots,” unlock their machines and count out the contents with the shop owner on the well-known “one for me and one for you” basis. Yet on so modest a division of spoils, one little club within the confines of St. Paul netted $3,200 on two nickel and one dime slot machine during 1931; a total “take” of $6,400 for the year, which is a lot of nickels and dimes in any man’s country.

In the summer resorts throughout these United States (whether in the California mountains or the Minnesota fir country) every group of owners knows well the familiar figure of the human jackal who affably places his machines in the choice “spots” and sits back and waits for the killing. He calls regularly throughout the season for his half of the spoils. To outward appearances he is the well-groomed, prepossessing business executive, spending his summer vacation away from the traffic encounters of the cities. Actually, he is just another of the oily band of scum whose depredations are designed to make bums out of upright American citizens.

Many a mayoral candidate wins voter confidence by shouting and fuming eternal damnation to vice and gambling menaces. Most candidates include a slot machine plank in their platforms. And always, after election, slot machines are knocked down and dragged out: for a while. Usually, after two or three short months, the slot machine pledges go the way of all pre-election promises. Police officers frequent places of business which operate slot machines—and (under orders) see them not. In most cities, a private citizens must swear out a specific complaint before police will confiscate them.

The self-styled “enormous $10,000,000 Institution” which leads the universe in slot machine manufacture prints a handsome service manual and parts price list for its customers. It reminds them: “In Coin Machine Operating, close harmony and cooperation between Operator and Manufacturer is essential for the success of both. Realizing this fact the . . . Company is constantly offering to operators—new machines—new ideas—new money-making plans.”

Of course, no anxiety is voiced for the success of the man who plays the slot machines. He is merely so much “sucker money.” “Keep in touch with us,” the brochure continues, “and you will have the pleasure of knowing that you are affiliated with the biggest, best, and most successful business of its kind in the world.”

Truly, the Operator and Manufacturer are determined on cooperation and “close harmony”: nothing is so tuneful and so satisfying to the ear as the sound of the jackpot pay-off. But for those of you who play their machines—”life is just a bowl of cherries”—and the cherries will never pay enough to make you rich!

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Sun Furnace Goes to Work
A man-made inferno tries out materials for jet and rocket engines—and shows one way to capture free solar power.

By Alden P. Armagnac

ATOP a 6,000-foot mountain near San Diego, Calif., they’re harnessing the sun to help build airplanes. A solar furnace newly installed there focuses the sun’s rays, with a 10-foot-diameter mirror of polished aluminum, upon a spot smaller than a dime. It surpasses by far the temperature of the hottest blowtorch or electric furnace.

Researchers of the Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation apply the sun furnace’s terrific heat to materials under trial for jet and rocket engines and for guided missiles. Aim of their experiments is to develop substances more resistant to heat and thermal shock than any yet known—stuff that won’t soften and flow, say, when a long-range missile screams back to the earth from dizzy altitudes.

That the possibilities are promising is shown by recent discovery of two super-refractories, hafnium carbide and tantalum carbide, with fantastically high melting points—7,530 and 7,020 degrees F., respectively. The first looks like the record for any substance known. For comparison, iron melts at a mere 2,800 degrees, and tungsten tops the list of metals at 6,100 degrees; while graphite, long the supreme heat-resisting material, turns from solid into vapor at about 6,600 degrees.

The California experimenters’ solar furnace, essentially, an enormous burning glass, provides the most practicable way to explore this newly opening extreme-high-temperature realm. When sky conditions are ideal, it yields an estimated maximum of 8,500 degrees F. At the focus of the great mirror, this heat is concentrated in a spot 5/16 of an inch in diameter.

Metal Melts Like Butter on a Stove

Its intensity burns a hole in firebrick with ease. Steel melts and drips like sealing wax over a flame, when a rod is held with its tip at the focal point. A movable cylindrical sunshade controls the temperature of thousands of degrees to within a degree or two, a triumph of precision. Equipped with an astronomical drive, the big mirror turns automatically to follow the sun, permitting experiments of hours duration.

Best of all pure samples of materials can be subjected to the searing heat without contamination by foreign substances, like carbon in electric furnaces. And there are no electric and magnetic fields, nor fumes, to disturb reactions or hinder spectroscopic observation.

Science’s Pioneers Led Way

In going to work for industry, the solar furnace has exchanged academic robes for overalls. For its advantages long were appreciated only by savants of pure science. Lavoisier and other great chemists of the past melted metals with solar furnaces, which made up in size whatever their lenses or mirrors lacked in optical perfection. Then the idea seems to have been forgotten, until recent years.

Abroad, French experiments that began a few years ago with a 78-inch searchlight mirror (PSM, Aug. ‘50, p. 122) have now led to what is probably the world’s largest solar furnace. Using a 40-foot-diameter composite mirror, a mosaic of small panes of window glass, this semi-industrial installation in the Pyrenees went into operation in 1952.

In this country, first practical use of a solar furnace appears to date back only a little earlier, to a little-known project of World War II. A 120-inch sun furnace was built for the AC Spark Plug Division of General Motors at Flint, Mich., with the cooperation of the Aluminum Company of America. Originally 16 reflecting sectors of quarter-inch sheet aluminum gave it a sa

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Fitted with specially designed numerals, a novel clock makes it easy to tell time no matter at what angle the timepiece is viewed. Hour numbers are lettered on both sides of projections from the clock face, which are shaped like wedges of cake. Thus the numerals can be seen from an angle far to the right or left of a position directly in front of the clock face.

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