The Story of Rope

By Andrew Hamilton

THE OLD INDIAN rope trick has amazed and mystified people for generations. A fakir throws a rope above the stage where it stands without apparent support, as stiff as a rod. The trick is simply this: an unnoticed four-pronged hook at the end catches a taut piano wire in the dim light above the stage.

This vaudeville stunt is not half as amazing as the miracle of rope itself—one of mankind’s most useful tools.

Pocket-Size Exposure Suit
Exposure, one of the biggest trials of airmen downed at sea, is curbed by an inflatable rubber suit small enough to be rolled into a pocket in the collar of a Mae West jacket. It weighs less than three ounces and provides air insulation against cold and damp. The suit is being tested in England and may soon be adopted as standard equipment for Royal Air Force crews.

Advertising Emblems Glow Weirdly In Cathode Ray Tubes
IN ONE of the most unusual of modern forms of advertising, trademarks mounted at the anode position of giant cathode ray tubes are painted in cold light of great brilliancy and dazzling color by electronic bombardment. Displayed in store windows, the tubes demonstrate to shoppers one of the many feats of the electronic tube, and at the same time display a business emblem.
Gilbert T. Schmidling, inventor of the first true cold light, coats these emblems with different chemicals, each giving off a certain color of cold light under electronic bombardment. Over 400 different shades, all of great brilliancy, have already been produced. Any number of colors may be obtained in one tube by using the different chemicals.