Modern Mechanix

Cheating TIME on the North Atlantic (Nov, 1928)

2008-12-03T18:00:47Z

Cheating TIME on the North Atlantic

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

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

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

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

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built the first marine steam engine for crossing the Atlantic, to the modern floating palaces which are shortly to be superseded in their four day schedule by faster means of carrying precious documents, gold, and letters of state between the two world centers.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

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

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

Why Speed?

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

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

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

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

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

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Why Men Are Superior to Fish (Nov, 1931)

2008-12-03T18:00:09Z

Why Men Are Superior to Fish

THE reason why men have better brains than fish and why land animals have evolved so much more rapidly than sea animals is to be found, says the Russian biologist, Dr. M. A. Menzbier, in the ability of men and other land animals to turn their heads from one side to the other.

Most fish never turn their heads sidewise but must turn the whole body if they wish to see something not already visible to one of their eyes. The development by the first air-breathing lung-fish hundreds of millions of years ago of the method of breathing air through the mouth into lungs released these creatures from this rigid, stiff-necked condition and made it possible for their descendants, including mankind, to have flexible necks, mobile heads and both eyes pointing to the front. All of these changes aided greatly to exercise the brain and improve it.

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Desert Travel - Modern Style (Oct, 1937)

2008-12-03T16:42:03Z

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Desert Travel - Modern Style

by Edgar M. Jones

SHUTTLING across the sands of the Syrian desert, between Damascus and Bagdad, are two shiny, new trailer-busses, fresh from the shops of Philadelphia. Built by Budd for the Nairn Transport Company of Syria, with the same technique of welded, lightweight, stainless-steel that made the now famous Zephyr trains, the new busses are a close approach to the luxury of a deluxe railroad car.

As in any public carrier, passenger comfort is of prime importance. Accordingly, the plans incorporated Budd experience in making railroad streamliners and auto bodies, with the Nairn need for an economical, speedy, lightweight, rugged bus which could travel the rough terrain with a minimum of trouble. To guard against the extreme temperatures of desert night and day (zero at times and often as high as 140 degrees), complete insulation and conditioning of air was specified. Leg room to equal Pullmans cut passenger capacity to seventeen in the day bus and fourteen in the sleeper. Extra wide chairs limited double seats to one side of the aisle and singles to the other.

The new busses lop nine hours from former crossing time and make the six-hundred-mile trip over trackless waste in fifteen hours, while passengers comfortably sway on rubber cushions. Coach seats face the front, but the sleeper is divided into compartments with seats facing each other. At bed time, the seat backs swing up to form upper berths supported by tubular frames. The gap between the seats is filled with an extra cushion and the lower is made. Sheets, pillows, blankets and curtains make the berths ready for sleepy travelers. Lighting and adjustable outlets for conditioned air are provided for each berth.

Following a formula akin to the hostess or steward plan on American airlines, a native throughout the trip comforts passengers with ice water, tea and coffee as well as box lunches with wrapped sandwiches and fruit. Each patron is provided with a small container having a patented lock for the protection of tooth brush, cash, jewelry, etc. Lockers for storing blankets, pillows, clothing and miscellaneous equipment are in the front of the trailer, while the rear has a dressing room which also contains wash basins and toilet facilities.

The flooring is surfaced with heavy linoleum which extends up the walls for six inches so that a flushing by hose is possible.

Walls, doors, and partitions are faced with birch plywood. The ceiling is made of perforated aluminum which acts to deaden sound. All windows are of safety glass and are curtained with drapes. A silvery corrugated exterior, looking for all the world like something made from Mother’s washboard, has some properties for deflecting sun rays, but any persistent outside heat or cold is stopped by insulation four inches thick in the roof and two inches thick in the sides.

Powered by a 150 h. p. Diesel motor, the tractor unit, sheathed in aluminum, furnishes a cab for the driver and his helper, air conditioning equipment, and space for baggage. At the rear of the tractor unit are hinged wings to enhance the streamlined effect.

Five 6.6 volt batteries connected in series and located in the tractor unit comprise the 32 volt lighting system for the bus. When the motor isn’t running, interior lighting is used sparingly. Compression for the cooling system is obtained from a gasoline engine. Air intakes are in the roof and exhaust fans on each side push out the warm air. Filled to capacity with passengers, baggage, water, and two hundred gallons of fuel oil, the total weight goes over fifteen tons.

The one and only scheduled stop between points is Rutbah which is the nearest thing in real life to the movie conception of desert outposts. Grim walls, radio towers, and detachments of soldiers remind travelers of Beau Sabreur and the Foreign Legion. The hotel, a large restaurant, and an ice-making plant do a thriving business at this meeting point for air and motor travelers . Possessing the only wells which do not go dry during the hot spell, Rutbah attracts the Arabs who camp outside the fort with their camels and livestock.

During the rainy months of January and February, water collects in the hollows of the desert. Puddles and mud, hundreds of yards wide and several miles long, spot the trail. As there is no telling the extent of this area, it is impracticable to detour. Drivers with an acquired Oriental fatalism on coming to mud, warn passengers, then drive at full speed to slide across on the belly of the bus. As a concession to this practice, the new trailers (turtle-like) have completely enclosed bottoms. Sandstorms force a complete stop (seldom over an hour or so). The tight fitting doors and windows prevent discomfort.

To the astonished natives and wondering resident Europeans, the new busses are but the most recent surprise that Norman Nairn delights in springing upon the slow-moving East. He was the first to have a speed boat to skim the Mediterranean near Beirut; the first to own an airplane. Always wanting speed, Nairn now in bis forties, has made a record of spectacular but profitable ventures.

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New Beer Truck Speeds Delivery (Aug, 1933)

2008-12-03T02:14:48Z

New Beer Truck Speeds Delivery
THE heavy demand for 3.2 per cent beer has been responsible for the development of a new type of beer truck which is expected to cut in half the time of loading and delivering the beer. Shown below, the truck carries 56 barrels. In the unloading process, when one barrel is removed from the rear platform another automatically falls into place. Operation of a lever unloads the entire truckload of empty barrels in one minute.

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Indestructible Container to Keep Records 10,000 Years (Jan, 1932)

2008-12-03T02:14:32Z

Indestructible Container to Keep Records 10,000 Years

PEOPLE living 10,000 years hence will have an opportunity to know what manner of people we of this age are through a scheme devised recently by a Japanese scientist which makes use of a special indestructible container that will preserve records intact against the ravages of milleniums.

Records describing conditions of the present will be written in Chinese ink on scrolls of dark blue Japanese paper, which is said to be more durable than any other material. Of especial interest in this project is the unique container in which the scrolls will be kept to inform the peoples of far-off centuries what things were like in this era. The inner container consists of a jar made of rods of fused quartz crystal and lined with asbestos-covered bands as illustrated in the accompanying drawing.

Bound with asbestos braid and tape, this jar will be exhausted of air, sealed at the top and then placed in an intermediate lead container. Finally the lead container will be sealed and placed in a cylinder of carborundum.

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New Glider’s Propellers Worked by Foot Power (Jul, 1934)

2008-12-02T06:39:52Z

New Glider’s Propellers Worked by Foot Power
A glider now being built in Germany is equipped so that it can be propelled by human power. When the pilot turns pedals located beneath his seat, power is transmitted to a propeller by means of bicycle chains and reduction sprockets. Although the propelling force developed is not great, it is expected that the glider will be easier to control than one that is flown without power, and as a result, its inventor says it can be kept in the air for a longer time.

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Canned Libraries Open New Vistas To Readers (Aug, 1936)

2008-12-02T06:33:47Z

Canned Libraries Open New Vistas To Readers

ALL of the reading material in the vast Library of Congress may be housed in a few small filing cabinets! To anyone who has seen the thousands of massive volumes in this great building, such a statement seems fantastic. But it remains a fact. Through recent developments in microphotography and the perfection of a new type of micro-grain film, the contents of two 10×15 inch pages can be reduced 400 times to occupy but three-fourths of a square inch of film.

Each volume so reduced in size is housed in a sealed cartridge not much larger than a 12-gauge shotgun shell. When desired for reading, it is inserted in a small cabinet, the light turned on, and the copy is projected upon a screen, enlarged to comfortable reading size and unaccompanied by glare.

Verneur Pratt, president of the International Filmbook Corporation, pioneers in the field of library microphotography, predicts that the filmbook will effect as. big a change in the printing industry as the invention of movable type.

He points out that large telephone directories can be held in the palm of the hand, can be inserted in the machine in a moment, and with a few turns of a dial the desired number is brought to light. There is no thumbing of pages, and the pages cannot be torn out. In the same manner bulky catalogs, city directories, and dictionaries can be reduced.

One of the greatest advantages of film books is that small schools and libraries with limited space and money can afford to have all the material which is now available only in the large cities. Files of perishable newspapers can be photographed and thus preserved indefinitely. The cost of making film books will be much below that of printing regular books and their small size also eliminates the storage problem.

The mechanics of the books are simple. The cartridge is inserted in the machine, and dials are turned instead of pages. It is foolproof, and a child can operate it.

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Radio Equipment for Autos Brings Broadcast Programs to Motorists (Sep, 1930)

2008-12-02T04:43:10Z

Three batteries, just for the radio?

Radio Equipment for Autos Brings Broadcast Programs to Motorists

RADIO, it seems, is destined to be installed in everything that flies, runs on wheels, or floats on water. The fast moving auto is the latest vehicle to be invaded by radio’s onward march.

Equipment has recently been placed on the market for installation in automobiles. As shown in the photo below, the control dials are installed on the dashboard, while the apparatus occupies a small space up under the cowl. The location of the loud speaker is optional, the space under the cowl being preferable. The antenna is ordinarily strung up in the roof, but many cars are equipped with built-in and invisible antennas, especially in the de luxe models of expensive makes.

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ROCKING-HORSE TRAINS BRITISH RIDERS (Jul, 1933)

2008-12-02T04:40:35Z

ROCKING-HORSE TRAINS BRITISH RIDERS
Mounted on rocking-horses, recruits of the British cavalry are now receiving preliminary training in horsemanship. At the Army Equestrian School, at Weedon, England, the wooden horses were recently installed to give rookies the feel of the saddle and practice in mounting and dismounting before they tackle the spirited animals stabled at the school. In advanced horsemanship, the wooden horses are also employed in teaching acrobatics and trick riding. They are said to be especially useful in helping riders acquire the right balance when a horse takes a hurdle. Dismounting from one of the rocking-horses, by means of the spectacular neck-roll, is being demonstrated in the photograph by the chief instructor.

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Penguins Move Enmasse on South Sea Isle to Guard Eggs (Sep, 1929)

2008-12-02T04:40:31Z

It’s been a long time since writers who mentioned a penguin had to explain what one was.

Penguins Move Enmasse on South Sea Isle to Guard Eggs

COVERING every available piece of land on a small island in the South seas, hundreds of thousands of penguins, strange aquatic birds shown above, tend their eggs during the period of incubation. The birds have a general elliptical shape with a neck of moderate length. Their heads are small with a comparatively long bill. They have no quills in their wings, which are useless for flight. However, their flippers move freely from the shoulder joint, making good paddles for swimming.

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Postpone Irrigation of Sahara (Sep, 1929)

2008-12-02T04:39:02Z

Still waiting…

Postpone Irrigation of Sahara
PLANS for turning the Sahara desert into a rich agricultural territory by means of diverting waters of the Mediterranean sea into depressions of the wasteland have been postponed for some time due to the death of the man whose idea and capital furnished the incentive. Dwight Braman, prominent American financier, was recently stricken with heart attack and died. It was his intention to begin the work of letting the sea into the desert this fall. American engineers and machinery were to be used, and following his return from Algeria before his death, Mr. Braman was highly enthusiastic of the possibility of making the “Sahara blossom like a rose.” Some of Mr. Braman’s friends are considering taking over the plans for the project.

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GIANT JUNKERS AIR LINER Designed for Ocean Trade (Sep, 1930)

2008-12-02T04:38:20Z

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GIANT JUNKERS AIR LINER Designed for Ocean Trade

FOLLOWING closely on the heels of the successful flights of the giant Dornier “DO-X” comes the announcement that Professor Junkers, the seventy-year-old German pioneer airplane builder of Dessau, has made highly pleasing test flights with his “Goliath G-38.”

Although not a true “flying wing,” the Junkers monoplane has adopted many of its features in order to cut down parasite resistance. The four engines have been placed in the leading edge of the single unbraced wing while the fuselage is extremely small for a plane of this size, being not much more than a strut to hold the tail assembly after the trailing edge of the wing has been passed.

The four Junkers engines, developing 2400 horsepower, lift a flying weight of 48,000 pounds, of which eleven tons are pay load. Used for passenger transportation only, the plane will carry 40 passengers on a non-stop flight of 3,000 miles, making the crossing of the Atlantic with a paying load entirely within the bounds of reason.

The pilot’s control room is located in the extreme tip of the fuselage, while directly behind and above is the commander’s room, connected to all parts of the ship by phone and equipped with the latest navigating instruments.

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Wrestlers Stage Underwater Battles (Jul, 1939)

2008-12-01T04:13:05Z

Wrestlers Stage Underwater Battles

Submarine matmen are staging underwater wrestling matches in a swimming pool, as a novel attraction for vacationing visitors at an Atlantic seaside resort. Viewed through glass windows in the walls of the swimming tank, the wrestlers seem to be staging a slow-motion bout as they make and break holds beneath the surface of the water.

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PLANE TALK - Ten years of Commercial Aviation (Aug, 1931)

2008-12-01T04:12:48Z

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PLANE TALK

Edited by H.H. Arnold

Ten years of Commercial Aviation

TEN years ago the first aerial mail line had been in operation for a very short time. The war trained pilots were trying to make up their minds whether to take up aviation as a profession or to get jobs on the ground. The Army and Navy had hundreds of surplus airplanes which they were selling for almost nothing. There were then a few far sighted people who were convinced that air transportation must certainly come into its own some day and were struggling with short air lines. There were hundreds of gypsy pilots picking up a few dollars here and there as they flew around the country. Then there was the trans-continental air mail system operated by the U. S. Post Office Department.

During the ten years which have passed since 1920 the growth of commercial aviation in the United States has been little short of marvelous. The illustrations herewith give a very clear and comprehensive idea of this growth. We have read and heard so many pessimistic opinions of our present day aerial transportation that it is hard to realize the miles flown in 1930 on regular air lines was about nine times the number flown in 1920. That there was 73 times more express carried last year than ten years ago. Similarly there are 19 times as many planes and 22 times as many pilots en- gaged in established commercial operations.

While the above figures would indicate that our air transport lines have taken on a natural healthy growth, the volume of business will be materially increased when passengers can ride with the same feeling of safety that they have on railroad trains. This may be brought about by a different design of planes or by the general use of individual or airplane parachutes.

The autogiro appears at the moment to offer possibilities for greater safety. Sport-type ships of this type are now available which can land on the proverbial dime and take off on a field no larger than a tennis court.

“Wire” Service on German Planes

PASSENGERS riding the transport planes of the German air company, Deutsche Luft Hansa, may now send commercial telegrams not in code and not exceeding fifteen words to stations on the ground, according to advices received from Trade Commissioner A. Douglas Cooke at Berlin.

Telegram blanks have been placed on all planes, and one merely writes his message and hands it to the steward. It is sent to the ground station, with which the pilot is in communication, by radio, and forwarded from there the same as any telegram.

Modern Airplanes Are Built to Withstand Bad Landings

ANY one who spends much time around an aviation field sees many kinds of landings. When a pilot makes a pancake landing he levels off and lands ten feet or more above the ground. As a result the plane drops to the ground with a flop that uses up all of the flexibility of the shock absorbing device. In some cases there are no resulting breakages but in others the entire landing gear seems to slowly fold up under the plane. However it is remarkable the rough usage a landing gear will stand. Modern planes are tested with a view of insuring a factor of safety sufficient to withstand a moderate pancake. The present day pilot normally flies in worse weather and flies in bad weather more often than the pilot of ten years ago. Thus the planes are given much worse treatment in landings for the visibility or lack of visibility has a direct bearing upon whether a good or bad landing is going to be made.

The accompanying photo shows an airplane being given a landing gear test. The bare fuselage with landing gear is loaded until it carries a weight equal to the maximum for which the plane was built. It is then raised to an inclined platform. The fuselage is then cut loose and allowed to fall freely.

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This ELECTRIC AGE (Feb, 1937)

2008-12-01T04:12:54Z

This ELECTRIC AGE

A Guest Editorial FARM drudgery must go. The application of electricity is eliminating needless human toil from industry. The heavy work in our factories—lifting and pushing and cranking—is more and more being turned over to electricity.

Electricity pumps water, runs great urban transportation and communication systems, and otherwise makes it possible to live comfortably in our complex metropolitan centers. The efficiency of the modern assembly line is a direct result of this widespread use of electric power.

With electric power the city housewife no longer dreads the “Blue Monday” laundry day. Her daily chores and the spring and fall house-cleanings have been reduced because of the electric refrigerator, vacuum-cleaner, electric washer and ironer, and above all, an abundance of running water.

Electricity promises even greater advances in agricultural processes and living standards than it has brought about in industry and in city homes. During the past half century—the period of great electrical development—we did no more than a 10 per cent job of electrifying our rural areas. It is strange that some seemed to believe that the saturation point in rural electrification had been reached. A saturation point, when dynamos supply only 3 per cent of the power which agriculture uses, as compared with 80 per cent of industrial power!

Today, however, a different picture is being drawn. Encouraged by Federal, State and local assistance, farmers are demanding power. They will be served in one way or another. Utilities, both public and private, are conscious of this demand, and rural expansion is the order of the day throughout the power industry. More and more the utilities are realizing the vast potentialities of the rural market.

With the assistance of power, the farm will be a much happier and more pleasant place to live. Power will prove to be one of the farmer’s greatest comforts and his most untiring hired hand.

Morris L. Cooke
DIRECTOR
Rural Electrification Administration

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No More Wrinkles in Prunes (Apr, 1932)

2008-12-01T04:11:58Z

No More Wrinkles in Prunes
THE prune, long famous for its corrugated complexion, is to have itself beautified by means of a new picking device which has recently been put to use in California.

This new machine, which bears a striking resemblance to an enlarged lawn mower, has a cylinder studded with sharp spikes whose function is to roll over the ground and impale the prune-plums lying around, waiting to be harvested.

Plum prunes thus impaled are brought around to the top of the cylinder where they are removed by a set of grooves, as illustrated below. Customary handling of the prune plum is avoided during the picking process, so that wrinkling is prevented.

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New Dry Shaver Uses No Electricity (Jul, 1940)

2008-12-01T04:11:39Z

New Dry Shaver Uses No Electricity
Small enough to be carried in a vest pocket, a dry shaver just introduced operates without electricity. The shaving element consists of a perforated cylinder free to turn on a grooved core, within which a narrow, replaceable blade is held in contact with the inside of the cylinder. In use, the shaver is moved over the skin as shown. The rolling perforated cylinder, moving past the inner blade, shears off the whiskers. Extra blades of high-grade steel can be purchased at low cost.

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Train Robbers Routed by Science and Brawn (Jul, 1931)

2008-12-01T04:11:15Z

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Train Robbers Routed by Science and Brawn

ALL the world . loves detective stories. Here is one that deals with real men and tells the thrilling truth about their fight to save millions of dollars in stolen goods. Ten years ago American railroads were losing $13,000,000 a year to box car bandits. On one road, scientific methods and the careful training of road police have now cut off about ninety-nine percent of this loss. In this story you see how these men do their work.

By BOYDEN SPARKES

I LIKE detective stories. Best of all I like stories of real detectives. Consequently when Professor Charles P. Berkey, Columbia University geologist, told me that a pile of rocks on his table was a clue in a mysterious robbery I pleaded for details.

“I’m just a helper on this job,” said Professor Berkey. “The real detectives are members of the New York Central Railroad police force. I am not at liberty to tell you about this case, but if you see Carl Jellinghaus, the railroad’s superintendent of Property Protection, perhaps you can get the whole story.”

I did see Jellinghaus and I got the whole story of the rocks. Better still, I got other yarns that made my blood course faster than any tales ever told of scientific detectives of fiction.

To get the full measure of a great railroad system’s fight with thieves it is necessary to consider the state of affairs that existed at the close of 1920. In that year robbers had taken from the trains and stations of the New York Central a total of $2,596,560. The Central was not the only road that was suffering from these bold criminals. For a long while conditions had been growing steadily worse until in 1920 the total loss by robbery on the rail- roads of the nation was $12,726,947. Last year the robbery loss of all the railroads was less than $1,000,000.

Affairs were in such a state that something had to be done. How well it was done on the New York Central may be shown by another total. Remember that the robbery loss in 1920 was $2,596,560, and then contrast with that the total loss for 1930, which was $2 7,936. When Jellinghaus gave me those figures he grinned. Then he wrote down another figure.

“This,” he said, “is the proportion to which the robbery loss has been reduced in ten years.”

I LOOKED at what he had written. The figure was 1.1 percent. That comes pretty close to being a perfect score.

“That change was not worked by keeping books,” I said. “How was it done?”

“Well,” he said, “some men were killed; some were wounded; a lot went to jail— car burglars, pickpockets, sneak thieves, crooks of all kinds. Our lines ten years ago were infested with thieves. Now it is different. Hoboes avoid our lines as carefully as they avoid work, and as for pickpockets, when one of them is seen around one of our stations he is pretty likely to keep his hands in his own pockets.”

“But how?” I persisted. “How about those rocks and Professor Berkey?”

The answer to that was an interesting revelation of the growing use of scientific knowledge in detective work. The rocks I had seen on Professor Berkey’s table had been found by an amazed grocer when he opened a packing case that was supposed to contain cheese from a Mediterranean port.

Other complaints began to pour in from other merchants who h?.d found rocks in boxes supposed to contain cheese. If the substitution had occurred anywhere along the New York Central the railroad would be liable to the shipper for the full value of his cheese. Who could say where those rocks came from? Well, a geologist might, and consequently specimens were taken to Professor Berkey.

“This is lava,” said the distinguished Columbia geologist. “It is a peculiar form of lava and I can guarantee that it came from just one place. Mt. Vesuvius.”

THAT was one robbery about which the New York Central could cease to trouble itself. The ship that had carried a cargo of cheese across the ocean to New York had stopped en route at Naples. Obviously the substitution had occurred there. The railroad was not responsible.

The switching of rubbish for merchandise is a common trick of freight thieves. The motive is always the same—to delay discovery of the crime as long as possible; and, of course, an empty box would arouse the suspicion of the first person to handle it. Among railroad men this sort of thing is spoken of as a concealed loss.

Sometimes it happens that the rubbish exchanged for stolen goods leads the detectives unerringly to the thieves. Once a ship that had left the Amazon loaded with crude rubber was discovered, when preparations were made to unload her, to be partially filled with rocks. Where had the substitution occurred? The ship was tied up at a railroad pier, but in her log was written the record of a five-thousand-mile journey. Were the thieves in South America, the West Indies, New York, or aboard ship?

Specimens of the rock were submitted to Professor Berkey. He identified them as pieces of concrete, and the concrete had been made from Long Island sand. The trail was hot! A concrete pier was being demolished in the immediate vicinity of the ship’s berth. That was bringing the crime pretty close to the men responsible.

OCCURRENCES of this sort illustrate a most important factor in the lowering of the robbery losses of the New-York Central and other American railroads. The railroad police have learned how to localize crimes.

There had always been a force of railroad policemen, and some of the individuals were first-rate men. But there were not enough of them and they were not well organized. There had always been a simple way of telling approximately where the robbery had occurred, but it had not been used. Every freight car when loaded is sealed with a string of tin looped through staples on the sliding door and doorframe and fastened with a small ball of lead.

A CHILD might break that seal, but once broken no amount of ingenuity could disguise the fact that it had been tampered with. But what was the good of discovering, at the end of a freight car’s journey, that it had been tampered with somewhere on the American continent? The problem was to discover at what points freight cars were being looted.

That was one of the first things to be done in clearing up the mystery of the annual disappearance of all manner of goods, silk, cigarettes, automobile tires, canned food, and other kinds of merchandise worth millions of dollars. Consequently arrangements were made to have freight trains moved through a corridor of police inspections.

Between Chicago and New York a tram might stop several dozen times. Nevertheless it was provided that each time there was a stop every seal had to be examined. If a policeman at one stop reported all seals intact and the one who made the next examination discovered that several were broken, that bit of information was a vital aid in recovering the stolen goods and capturing the robbers.

EAST of Buffalo the New York Central police are under the command of Chief James D. Roosa, who weighs about 220 pounds when he is in condition, as he generally is. For some time all his men had been getting regular pistol practice. At night before they rolled into bed, and in the morning as their feet touched the floor, they would practice. They would draw their guns in a manner taught them by an expert, aim at the doorknob, and then squeeze the trigger. Of course they always went through these exercises with unloaded guns. The point is they practiced as faithfully as old-time gunmen of the West. Also they were given frequent opportunities to fire their guns on a range using as a target a swinging silhouette fashioned in the shape of a man.

On a farm in the hilly region south of Niagara Falls, N. Y., there was a man who also practiced with pistols and rifles incessantly. This supposed farmer’s hired hands also practiced. The man’s name was Perry. He was a Westerner and something of a sinister mystery to his neighbors; but he was no longer a mystery to Chief Roosa and some of his detectives.

They were convinced that this man was the leader of the most daring gang of freight thieves in the United States. Almost any one of the daring freight robberies within a radius of one hundred miles from Perry’s farm might justly be attributed, they felt, to this toughest of all car burglars. But how to catch him?

Chief Roosa stopped shaving for a couple of days; so did ten of his best men. Then, when they closely resembled a collection of tough hoboes, they started north for a section of the railroad known as the Falls Road. It runs from Oswego to Niagara. In some manner Chief Roosa had learned that an attempt was to be made to rob a particular freight car loaded with costly furs.

IT WAS a dark night when that fur car was shunted back and forth in the railroad yards until it had become part of a freight train. Secreted within the car were a couple of tough looking citizens who rode silently in nests they had formed for themselves in the bales and boxes of freight.

Hours later the men within the sealed car heard above the clamor of its thirty-mile-an-hour speed the sound of feet on the roof. Then a heavy body scraped against the side of the car. They waited tensely. The door was pushed open. A strip of blue light relieved the gloom of the car interior. The shooting began at once. It was by no means a one-sided battle.

The invader answered them shot for shot for a space. Then for a second or two that passed as slowly as hours there was no firing. The two men in ambush heard a body crash heavily to the floor. Again they heard steps on the roof, fired up, and waited expectantly. But nothing happened. That other thief had jumped from the moving train into the darkness.

When the freight train stopped at the next station two more of Chief Roosa’s men joined the pair in the car. The man with whom they had fought was dying.

Chief Roosa’s men hastened back to the point on the right of way where the gun fight had begun. There they found and made a prisoner of a dazed person they identified as an old car thief known as Shanahan. Him they locked in jail, but where was Perry?

Perry, the prosperous farmer, came to the jail boldly to see about getting the release of his hired man and was promptly locked up. Sufficient evidence was dug up to bring a conviction and a prison sentence.

Perry, Shanahan, and a fourth man were given long terms in Atlanta penitentiary because in robbing a shipment in interstate transit they had committed a Federal offense.

Silk was one of the great prizes luring car burglars ten years ago. In 1920 the value of the raw silk stolen from cars or stations of the New York Central was $426,965. During the last five or six years not a dollar’s worth of silk has been lost by the road. This is in spite of the fact that a small bale of silk, easily carried by a man, is worth about S500 and there have been times when that value was $900. All this thievery was stopped completely by policing shipments of silk.

THERE were some bottles containing brilliantly colored powders standing on the desk of Chief Roosa when I was in his office recently.

“Are you going in for chemistry?” I asked him.

“No,” he replied, “but sometimes chemistry helps us.”

Then he explained about the bottles. A railroad with scores of thousands of employees and with many other thousands of persons, messengers, truckmen, and other visitors having access to its premises, may suffer from sneak thieves. Sometimes they take baggage; sometimes they rifle desks.

The sum of their activities if uncontrolled might make a serious dent in the income of a railroad. Consequently such characters must be frightened into good behavior. The railroad has not the time to reform all the pilferers in the world. It has to be satisfied to keep them from stealing.

“Our method,” explained the chief, “is quite simple. We always catch them.

“If we get a few complaints about objects disappearing from baggage, and everything that vanishes even though it is worth only a few cents is reported to us, we get busy with those little bottles. We place some of the powders in those bottles in the desks that are being looted; or rub it on baggage placed as bait.

“Usually the thief is not a very daring person anyway but what nerve he has vanishes when he discovers that his fingers have become stained with indelible marks that will not wash off, scrub them as hard as he may. Then along strolls a railroad policeman. All he is looking for is someone with stains on his fingers. Usually a thief trapped in that manner hasn’t enough nerve left to lie about the matter.”

Record keeping can be a science, and the localizing records of the New York Central police are certainly kept in a scientific manner. Sometimes the property of passengers disappears from coaches or Pullmans. The missing articles are catalogued in two ways by a sort of cross indexing that may be reached through a reference to the type of article or the place on the train where the happening occurred.

IT would not be fair to say too much about this system, but one illustration will serve to show its effectiveness. Several passengers on trains running in and out of New York had reported that their money had been stolen while they were sleeping in their berths.

The robberies were not confined to the same Pullman nor even to the same train. Nevertheless the records in Chief Roosa’s office indicated that a certain colored porter might be responsible. It was revealed by those records that he had been aboard every train on which a robbery had occurred. Sometimes he had been the porter of a car in that train, but the robberies never occurred in his car. At other times he was a dead-head passenger. Finally he was dismissed. Then another robbery occurred.

A wealthy man woke up one morning and began to squawk because his trousers were missing. They were found beneath a berth farther down the car. The pockets were empty. The man said they had contained $115. One of Chief Roosa’s men was aboard the train. He spotted the dismissed porter riding on the train as a passenger and took him into custody. The man was carrying a revolver and that made it possible to arrest him. In his pockets $115 was found. New bills, unwrinkled.

THE colored man protested with heat that it was his money. While he was serving out a six-month sentence for carrying a revolver without a license, the railroad policemen kept on investigating. They went to the bank of the man who had been robbed. The cashier remembered that this rich man was always cranky about getting new bills when he cashed a check.

The bank records revealed that the money had been paid from a bundle received from the Federal Reserve Bank. A check-up revealed that the serial numbers of the bills in that bundle had included the same serial numbers of the bills found in the colored man’s pocket. In the face of that evidence he decided to confess.

It is in that painstaking investigation and preparation of evidence that you can find a portion of the answer to the question as to how the New York Central with its property spread over half the continent has been able in the last few years to protect that property against thieves. It has protected it and is protecting it while all the cities through which the lines of the New York Central run have been suffering as never before from the depredations of thieves. Science has helped; so has the freedom of the railroad’s police from the interference of gang politics; likewise marksmanship.

There have been plenty of gun fights in the last dozen years but now that it is pretty generally known that the railroad policemen have become crack shots there is less and less necessity for shooting. The pistol expert who teaches these men, traveling all over the lines to do so, is Captain Jack Smith, who formerly worked with Annie Oakley and traveled as an expert shot with the 101 Ranch Show.

It is not uncommon for communities along the New York Central to appeal for the aid of one of the company’s crime specialists in emergencies. All of them are officers of the states in which they operate.

LIEUTENANT Joseph Genova of this A unusual force of industrial policemen is so accomplished in tracking murderers that his services are often loaned to small towns bewildered by a mysterious crime.

One puzzling mystery solved after painstaking work by the New York Central men concerned a dynamite explosion at a mine tipple. A box of caps found at the scene of the explosion was traced to a place many miles away where dynamite had been stolen. The man who was arrested for the dynamiting had thought he had a pretty good alibi. At the moment the explosion occurred he had been talking to the local chief of police. How he arranged that was explained when it was revealed that with the dynamite he had taken 250 feet of fuse. While that was burning he had had ample opportunity to stroll into town and engage the chief in conversation.

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