Sun Supplies Heat For This House
OLD SOL provides the heat for the hot water system in this new sun laboratory, recently completed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for research on using the sun rays for house heating and power generation. The man on the roof is Dr. Byron B. Woertz, research assistant, who is inspecting energy collectors, or “heat traps,” in which circulating water is heated by sunlight and stored in a large basement tank for future use.

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Auto SCOOTER

IN CROWDED metropolitan centers across the country the thin trickle of new automobiles is helping one problem —transportation—but heightening another. Parking lots are bursting with automobiles of commuters, curbs are lined and every city has a parking problem which no plan has solved. Increased costs pose another serious problem for the average family. Car prices have risen beyond comfortable reach. One-car families which ordinarily might be two-car families can’t afford the extra outlay of $2,000 or more, even if auto deliveries could be made next week. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW EYE TESTER

THIS remarkable instrument, which is in reality a battery of lenses no bigger than a cigar box, enables the optician to secure over one million combinations of lenses almost instantaneously. The London Refraction Hospital which has recently been rebuilt at a cost of $50,000, contains this machine among many others of the same type. Read the rest of this entry »

Light Pipes

GLASS tubing—eight hundred miles of it each month—flows from the nose of the 100-ton mandrel furnace at right. Cut into five-foot lengths for 100-watt fluorescent lamps, the tubes are first thoroughly cleaned inside and out with the combination brush and suction cleaner shown above. Then each one is filled to the top with fluorescent powders called phosphors. The liquid drains out leaving a phosphor coating inside and the long bulbs are placed on the rack at left to dry. Above, the furnaceman inspects tubing as it emerges

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Are Patent Medicines Dangerous?

BY ROBERT L. HEILBRONER

Down in Washington. D.C., a constant, unobtrusive cold war is being waged by three organizations—the Federal Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, and a quiet institution known as The Proprietary Association.

These three groups are vigilantly protecting the consumer against foods, drugs, and cosmetics that are adulterated, or labeled or advertised with false or misleading statements.

They also do occasional battle with the remnants of the once-famous quack-medicine makers, known to some as “the patent-medicine industry.” They were fugitives from justice, with a record both long and nauseating. Theirs was at best a cold-blooded operation built on the principle that there is no buck so easy to wangle as the buck of a person in pain.
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This totally explains my lack of sporting ability. Damn you cavities!

Why Billy C. was benched

There he sat on the sidelines . . . all through football days. With the finest new football outfit in the neighborhood .. . with everything but a place on the eleven.

Baffled and hurt as only a twelve-year-old can be he tried desperately. But fumbled the ball. Couldn’t keep up with plays. Just couldn’t make the grade.
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FUN JEEP, above, intended for beach use, touring, camping; seats seven. Farina-built, it features gas-stretching 4-cylinder mill.

Fletner S-Rotor Used for Windmill

TAKING a hint from the unique power plant of the rotor ship designed by Anton Fletner several years ago, Charles L. Lawrence, aeronautical engineer, has designed a windmill —the only one of its kind in this country — which uses the famous S-Rotor to catch the wind. Mounted high on a platform as shown in the accompanying photo, the cylindrical rotor is hooked to a pump which supplies water to a duck pond. Pump is housed in the shed beneath.

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Hollywood Star Chaser

Tired of being a fall guy for films, this stunt man got on the phone and called up a fortune.

By Carl Crawford

MAYBE I shouldn’t admit it, but I got my big money-making idea right after falling downstairs on my head eight times in a row.

Frankly, I don’t recommend such tumbles to anyone seeking inspiration for a novel business venture. I was a stunt man in the movies at the time and took those eight falls downstairs as a professional daredevil.

That afternoon, when I was wearily picking up my battered bones, I heard the director hailing an actor who’d just come on the set: “Where the devil were you this morning, Joe? I had a nice, little part for you—four days’ work at 60 bucks a day. But when the studio couldn’t find you, I had to get somebody else.” Read the rest of this entry »

HEN BRAVES FLOOD
ONE of the refugees in the recent Mississippi flood was an old Plymouth Rock hen who floated around on her box-board raft until she was rescued. The photograph shows biddy registering joy as her owner approaches in a canoe. The hen may be seen to be wearing a complacent, self-satisfied expression, but it must be explained in extenuation that it’s a rare chick which grows up to become captain, first mate, and roustabout of her own Mississippi steamer!

Patents ~ Nutty or Novel?

BELIEVE it or not, the United States Government has issued letters patent on the extraordinary devices pictured on this page. The average owner of a patent is lucky if he breaks even on expenses. Out of some two million patents granted in this country, the number which never make a cent for their inventors reaches staggering proportions.
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Behold the Cripple!

By Bernarr Macfadden

IF YOU lose an arm or a leg you are classed as a cripple.

If you walk with a limp, or have an unmistakable indication of a physical defect of any sort, you are put in the same class of the disabled.

Now there are plenty of people who are defective mentally and physically, but as far as you can see they possess normal powers.

There is no limp in their walk, and superficially they seem to be normal mentally. Read the rest of this entry »