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The Truth about Tidal Waves

Paradoxical as it may sound, tidal waves have caused some of the most terrible disasters in history, yet they occur twice daily without serious results. Here is an explanation of these oceanic upheavals.

by CALVIN FRAZER

ANY kind of an upheaval of the ocean’s surface has generally been called, particularly by newspaper writers, a tidal wave, but according to the strict definitions of science this designation has been a grevious error. The error, unfortunately, has crept into the working vocabularies of scientists themselves, and now tidal wave has come to denote any kind of oceanic disturbance in which the waters of the sea rise up in their might and work havoc on ships at sea and inhabitants of the littoral.

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FLUFF-O MFG. CO. sounds like the name of some present day ultra-hip animation studio.

GO INTO BUSINESS for YOURSELF MAKING MAGIC CHEESE CHIPS

NO HOUSE-TO-HOUSE

NO COSTLY MACHINE TO BUY

EXPERIENCE UNNECESSARY

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I knew it couldn’t be my fault that I’m a bad driver. It’s those damn ions!

Is ion deficiency a threat to your life when you drive?

Do you lose your temper or your judgment or even your concentration when driving? If you do, it may be because you’re breathing unbalanced ion-starved air.

Think of it this way. When you’re walking in the mountains or by the seashore the negative-positive ion balance in the air is ideal, with negative ion density between 2000/ 4000 per cubic centimeter. (In a moving car or other vehicle there is usually only 80-100 negative ions per cubic centimeter. And far too large a proportion of positive ions.) The important thing is: Negative ions are good for you and help you; positive ions make you grumpy and tired and affect your judgment.

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Free Air Costs Nickel Unless—
ANEW device recently patented makes it necessary that motorists either make a purchase at a filling station or pay a nickel for the shot of air they put in their tires. In operation when a coin is put into the slot it releases enough air to inflate five tires. A special lever returns the coin.

Man, you should have seen the Mormon Meteor go! The Jumping Jew and the Leaping Lutheran never had a chance.

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JENKINS TUNES NEW SPEED MACHINE

Racer’s engine burnt alcohol, produces 550 horsepower at 8,500 r.p.m. to drive car at 260 m.p.h. Three Winfield carburetors feed 38,000-r.p.m. supercharger; aftercooler, on top of block, prevents pre-ignition. Compression ratio is 24 to one.

Front-wheel drive helps hold the “Mobil Special” on its course. Front wheels are individually sprung, with torsion bars replacing ordinary leaf springs. Tires’ rubber tread is only 3/32-inch thick.

Bud Winfield, who built the engine, examines completed car. Tail, narrowing to a thin line, is designed to stabilize machine while it races over a 10-mile circle on the hard-packed natural track.

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Strapping your kid into the bathtub just seems like a bad idea. How about they just change the first sentence to: “It’s dangerous to leave a small baby unattended in the bathtub, so don’t do it.”

Safety Belt Moors Baby in the Bathtub

It’s dangerous to leave a small baby unattended in the bathtub, and yet, when the telephone rings or the doorbell must be answered, it is sometimes inconvenient not to be able to do so. Carl H. Fischer, a Council Bluffs, Iowa, engineer and father of three youngsters, solved this problem with the ingenious device pictured at the left. The baby is strapped in a harness that is attached to a metal bar. When the bar is turned, rubber pads threaded to the ends press tightly against the sides of the tub and hold the safety bar firmly in place.

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DARING DEATH With NEWS CAMERAMEN

by TED DALTON
Picture Assignment Editor, the New York News.

Why wasn’t De Pinedo rescued? Why couldn’t mechanics save him if photo sleuths got close enough to take tragic shots—?

Why do news cameramen dare death, go to any length to get pictures of executions, burning munitions factories, gang wars—?

Ted Dalton, camera ace, gives the answers in this thrilling yarn about Unsung Knights of the Shutter!

THE universal clamor today is for pictures —for action photographs of thrilling drama, of death-defying adventures, and of disasters in every quarter of the globe.

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I’m sure the elk would be quite honored if there were any left.

PILE OF ANTLERS A MONUMENT TO THE ELK

Elk antlers have been gathered and formed into an unusual monument in Yellowstone National Park. The monument, which is twelve feet high, marks the place where thousands of elk once roamed, before the large herds were wiped out by hunters. Rangers in the park are responsible for this tribute to the departed elk.

Mud Skyscrapers of Desert Built Long before Log Cabin
Mud skyscrapers that were hundreds of years old when log cabins began to dot the American wilderness still stand in the ancient city of Shibam in southern Arabia. The modern steel skyscraper is only fifty years old. Shibam was a thriving city of tall buildings in the time of the Queen of Sheba, and still is a busy desert metropolis today. So constructed as to withstand the raids of hostile Arab tribesmen, with windows high above the ground, the Shibam skyscrapers were of mud mixed with straw and maize, dried and hardened by the desert sun.

Weird Futurist Designs Found by Camera in Modern Industry

You may get lost in the dizzy maze of triangles shown above, but it is only one of the surprising modernistic designs now found in the world of machines. This shows what you would see if you looked down one of the 820-foot masts of the Rugby, England, radio station.

They look like whirling disks with concentric circles giddily revolving, but actually they are what the camera saw when it photographed rolls of paper in a printing plant.

Curiously suggestive of the long leaves of tulip plants are these slender steel chutes that spiral downward in a German post office.

Standing like an army of gnomes drawn up at attention, the rigid fingers of these rubber gloves gave the photographer a highly futuristic picture. The gloves, stretched on forms after dipping, are being sent to the vulcanizing room to receive final treatment before leaving the factory.

This is not a futurist drawing of a ballet dancer, but an unusual photo of a spiral staircase and lights.

COSMIC RAYS MAY FORECAST WEATHER

Cosmic rays may help to prophesy the weather. This first practical use for the mysterious radiations from outer space was recently announced by Dr. R. A. Millikan, Calif. Institute of Technology physicist.

The “cosmic rays” are more penetrating than radium or X-rays, but it is not known whether they affect human beings.

Dr. Millikan, who discovered the source of the rays (P. S. M., July, ‘28, p. 13), has measured their strength with his new electroscope, and is able to determine high-altitude atmospheric conditions.

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The WORLD’S BIGGEST EYE

A GROUP of American astronomers soon will experience one of the greatest scientific thrills of the century. On the night the world’s most tremendous telescope is completed they will take turns peering into a tiny, brilliant eyepiece.

Looking at the heavens with the aid of the most extraordinary piece of glass ever poured, they may make discoveries that will completely change man’s conception of the universe.

After years of research the men in charge of building the monster instrument for the California Institute of Technology are now at work. Astronomers estimate that the mirror, 360,000 times more powerful than the human eye, will magnify the moon and planets 10,000 times.

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