Equally useful for the expert swimmer or the beginner, a new swimming pad is being introduced that does not interfere with the free movement of the arms. An air-filled rubber pad of triangular shape is held on the person’s chest and another on the back, both pads being attached to a belt that passes around [...]
Motorcyclists will appreciate a handy and inexpensive map holder which can be fastened to the handlebars of the machines, and is always in plain view. The road map is folded to show the route to be traveled and then inserted in the holder, which has a transparent celluloid cover. The rider thus has the map [...]
From John Wilson Croker’s 1853 manuscript, The History of the Guillotine: The Guillotine was not originally designed with any view to what turned out to be its most important characteristic – the great numbers of victims that it could dispose of in a short space of time: it is curious, and ought to be to [...]
It is quite difficult to mow the grass on steeply slanting terraces, and for this work an extension handle for the lawn mower will be found a great help. Two pieces of hardwood of about the same dimensions as the mower handle are fastened to the latter with bolts, as shown. A handle is fastened [...]
Comedy motion-picture producers go to great expense to evolve new and absurd situations in which the cast perform, and the elongated automobile shown in the accompanying photograph is a late instance of this. An old car of well-known make has been transformed into an imitation motor bus, whose excessive length of wheelbase and the sagging, [...]
There is now being manufactured a camera which can be carried in the pocket, operates automatically with the precision of a high-grade watch, and takes either motion pictures, snapshots, or time exposures simply by pressing a button. No tripod or hand crank is required, the camera being held in the hands and the image located [...]
What appears, at first glance, to be an airplane without wings, is, in reality, a road vehicle driven by a motorcycle engine and propeller. Airplane parts have been used for nearly all of the construction, and on smooth roads the little machine is capable of good speed. Braking is accomplished through two hardwood reels that [...]
Fishing in the waters surrounding Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, recently, one of the natives captured a giant halibut that measured a little more than 8 feet long and 4 feet wide. An old-fashioned native wooden hook was used in making the catch, and after the fish had been killed, it was loaded into a [...]
In an effort to excel in their chosen profession, performers are constantly devising new ways of showing their skill or strength. As an example of this nature, a circus performer of Berlin makes himself the center support of a merry-go-round on which eight full-grown men ride. The strong man lies on his back on a [...]
Terminating at the edge of the pool, a radio megaphone has been constructed at a California bathing resort, that, for size, eclipses anything of the kind that has been built, up to date. The opening of the megaphone is rectangular, and is so large that it can be used as a diving platform by at [...]
In cities having bathing beaches on lakes where there is little or no current of water, many people are deterred from swimming by the fear of infection from polluted water. Recent inquiries by the American Public Health Association among a number of medical specialists and health officers, elicited the fact that three-fifths of them considered [...]
Checkers, that staid old game usually pondered over in the quiet corners of the home, has lately been introduced as an outdoor novelty by a New Jersey inventor. The “board” consists of a specially prepared lawn, the regulation number of “white squares” being made by removing sections of sod, while the “black” are designated by [...]
“Wooden policemen” brandishing heavy spiked clubs on which is written “Keep off the Grass!” are used by the University of Wyoming to keep pedestrians from trampling the college lawns. The effigies are 26 inches high and mounted on a stake about 10 inches long. They were made by a student organization. Image/Copy credit.
Camouflaging the telephone is a method used by the proprietor of a café in Los Angeles, Calif., to provide service at any time to those acquainted with the secret. The exterior of the building being of concrete blocks, an imitation block having a spring door has been made of wood. Persons familiar with the location of [...]
A baby carriage driven by a gasoline motor is the latest novelty in England. The small motor is geared to an extra wheel at the rear, and there are footrests on either side of this wheel for the nurse-chauffeur, who stands upright and controls the carriage by means of levers on the handlebar. The odd [...]
A simple but effective apparatus for drying the hair with a blast of warm air, or for other purposes where a supply of heated air may be required, is easily made from an electric toaster and a vacuum cleaner. A wooden box, large enough to contain the toaster, is lined with sheet asbestos, sodium silicate [...]
