That wide tank on the left looks like it would break in half at the slightest bump and it looks like that truck on the left would have a pretty hard time pulling that huge armored trailer.

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Inventors Offer Thousands of Ideas to Help Beat the Axis

WAR inventions are flooding the National Inventors Council and the U. S. Patent Office. At the Council’s headquarters in Washington, D. C, 45,000 suggestions have been received during the last year. And 3,000 of them have been adopted—one out of 15, an amazingly high proportion that pays tribute to American inventive ability. Results have well justified the effort of sorting valuable new ideas from equally well-meant schemes that prove unsuitable for various reasons.
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Engineer Is Safe in Steel Wire Cage Charged With 300,000 Volts
Even though a 300,000-volt electric current surges through the steel-wire ball which encloses him, an engineer in a Munich museum demonstration remains unperturbed. The so-called “Faraday’s cage” protects its passenger even though he’s in the midst of a powerful electrostatic field. The electricity spreads harmlessly around the ball and is then grounded via a cable.

I screwed up when scanning this article and I’m missing the last few pages. So I’m sorry but you’ll have to make due with the first 15.

As Jayessell pointed out in the comments to another article from this magazine, the cover image as well as the first page of this article are from the 1929 Fritz Lang picture “Frau im Mond”. I’m not sure if the landscapes and moonscapes are from the same movie, but they are beautifully done.

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ROCKET TO THE MOON?

The favorite theme of science fiction is no longer a fantasy-latest advances in rocket research make it a distinct possibility.

BY WILLY LEY

Charter Member of British Interplanetary Society and Author of Rockets—Future of Travel Beyond the Stratosphere

THE STORY OF THE MOON GUN

WITH the exception of an occasional comet, our moon is the nearest of all celestial bodies. Its average distance, in round figures, is 240,000 miles. Sometimes it is distant by 13,000 miles more, sometimes, when the moon is closer in its orbital gyrations, it is almost 20,000 miles less. The average, or mean, of all the possible distances is 240,000 miles; or, if you want to be more precise, 238,900 miles.

As astronomical distances go, this is very close indeed; it is not even very far when a purely terrestrial yardstick is applied. I know a Hollywood producer who, for business reasons, has to come to New York five times every year. After eight years of flying to New York five times a year and back, he will have travelled the whole distance to the moon. Taken as one trip, it would be 900 hours on a fast transport, 600 hours on a modern fighter plane.
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Bed Headboard Holds Many Gadgets
ABED headboard which features space and wiring for numerous electrical contrivances has been developed by Frank Hasencamp, of Chattanooga, Tenn. As shown in photo, the headboard accommodates a telephone, radio, fan, clock and thermostats for controlling room temperature

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The Epic Story of Radium
RADIUM was discovered by Madame Marie Curie, who with her husband found the secret four years after being assigned the task in 1892. Gilbert La Bine found vast fields of pitchblende, from which radium is extracted, in Canada in 1930, thus assuring the world of a steady supply of the deadly life saver at considerably lower cost than had been possible before. There radium is mined in the largest quantities known. More than 12,000 tons of pitchblende ore have to be blasted and put through various processes before a full ounce of radium can be obtained. On these pages is the story of radium, from the mines near Eldorado, Canada, through the refineries 1,500 miles away.

Doesn’t this look like a Beastie Boys video?

Airmen Test Asbestos Suits
CLAIMED to provide considerable protection against the danger of flames from an airplane afire in mid-air, asbestos flying suits are being tested by pilots of the British Royal Air Force. The suits are light in weight and, as can be seen from the photo, do not restrict physical movement.

I would buy almost anything if it was called the Concord Delirium I.

World’s thinnest watch
A quartz analog watch barely as thick as a nickel has been introduced by Ebauches SA of Switzerland and ETA, its subsidiary. The solid-gold watch, only 1.98 mm thick (0.52 mm thinner than its nearest rival, says the maker), required that most components be specially designed. With its quartz-crystal time reference, the watch is accurate to within 10 seconds a month. But it’s face has no second hand and no calibrations. The Concord Delirium I is an aristocrat at a royal price: $4400. The same technology, however, can be applied to more practical watches.—V. E. Smay

President Roosevelt’s personal plane which is in reality a specially designed Douglas C-54, was used by the late Chief Executive on several historic trips. Elevator made it possible for him to come aboard in his wheelchair easily.

[Insert Sylvia Plath joke here. Everyone loves a good Sylvia Plath joke.]

Actually this is a sort of interesting post because it shows how Modern Mechanix (which changed it’s name to Mechanix Illustrated in 1938) reuses images and articles. Here is virtually the same article, though with slightly different info and a slightly crappier picture.

Huge Electric Lamp Globe Covers Kneeling Girl
DEVELOPED in the laboratories of a well known electrical products manufacturer, a new incandescent electric lamp has a globe so large that it completely encloses an average size kneeling girl, as shown above. The huge lamp is rated at 100,000 watts and has filaments of about the same diameter as an ordinary lead pencil. The large glass cup shown in the hands of the man is sealed to the lamp, forming its base. Note the standard 60-watt electric bulb in the hands of the girl demonstrator.

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Good-By to the “Wobble-Stick”

By Julian Leggett

AMERICAN automobile manufacturers are agreed that the “wobble-stick” must go. As a result, the 1939 models are equipped with, or offer at small extra cost, handy little gear shifters located on the steering post to replace the long lever that stuck out of the floor in the driving compartment. Few times in automotive history-have the makers been in such accord. Perhaps other manufacturers took a tip from the favorable response which greeted the steering-post shifter introduced in 1938 by LaSalle, Cadillac and Pontiac, but more probably, they recognized it as the answer to two problems: first, how to clear the front compartment without using an expensive automatic transmission, and, second, how to eliminate noise conducted into the car by the old type lever, or wobble-stick.
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Ambitious seems to be a bit of an understatement.

Big Dam to Water Sahara
Turning the Sahara Desert into blossoming farm land, with water drained from the Mediterranean Sea, is the ambitious project for which, Hermann Sorgel, German engineer, seeks international support. He proposes to dam the Strait of Gibraltar, and then cut a canal to flood portions of the Sahara below sea level. Evaporation from the inland lake thus formed would produce rain clouds and water a vast area, he maintains. By-products of the scheme would be hydroelectric power and new land reclaimed from the Mediterranean.

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NEW for the HOME

Sun Naps won’t lead to lobster complexions if you use this gadget which shuts off lamp automatically. Good for pressure cookers and other appliances. Paragon Electric Co., Two Rivers, Wisc.

Fireproof Shade made of unfilled cotton cloth with vinyl plastic coating. Conventional window shade, left, blazes while coated one, right, resists flame. Stewart Hartshorn Co., New York.
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