As boys throw stones from slingshots whirled around their heads, so a rotating catapult just patented will enable aircraft to take off from restricted areas, like the roofs of buildings. To a vertical pole that rotates at high speed is attached a long lever. This is pivoted to the pole at its top, while a [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The automobile owner who cleans his own car and who, after hours of backbreaking effort and at the expense of bruised knuckles, has removed all the mud from the running fear only to find the paint underneath caked and chipped, will welcome a novel aid in the auto-washing job. This consists of a shallow concrete [...]
For industrial pictures, for use in hospitals, or for moving-picture shows at home, a new projecting machine has been devised which can be operated by electric dry batteries or from the regular house-lighting circuit. In lace of the usual strip of film, the pictures are made on round disks similar in appearance to phonograph records. [...]
Combining electricity with an alarm clock as a means of rousing himself from sleep, was the idea of an Argentine workman in Buenos Aires. The clock, alone, failing to awaken the heavy sleeper, he had conceived the plan of connecting the electric-light circuit to his wrists, with wires. Then, when the predetermined time arrived, the [...]
Water golf, the latest fad of pleasure seekers, is played entirely on the water with the aid of a canoe and a floating tee. The tee, which is tied to the canoe, is placed in the water, the ball upon it, and then driven over the “fairway” in the direction (if one is fortunate) of [...]
A new photograph-printing machine includes several features not found in other machines. The ground-glass diffusion screen may be raised or lowered one inch by means of a small wheel at the left edge of the table. Two extra diffusion screens may be slid into place by handles at the right side of the table. By [...]
In the past, when aerial flight was still a dream, such ideas as the one here illustrated were put forth as solutions of the problem, but today, when aerial flight is a fact, machines of this order seem out of place. The means of buoyancy are a balloon, and auxiliary buoyant bodies located just under [...]
From the New-York Post, February 26, 1870 courtesy of the Illustrated Description of the Broadway Pneumatic Underground Railway. THE PNEUMATIC TUBE – A Reception Under Broadway For the first time in the history of New-York a reception with all the accompaniments of furnished saloons, champagne and salads, was held under Broadway this afternoon. On descending [...]
An automobile funeral car with a compartment that will seat 36 people, in addition to space for the casket and flowers, is attracting much attention in Cleveland, Ohio. The car has been used for a number of funerals and takes the place of nine closed carriages and a hearse. In bad weather it can be [...]
One of the fastest automobiles in the world is here shown with its inventor, Walter Christy, at the wheel. The machine has been driven around a circular track at the rate of one mile in 57 seconds, although it is claimed that it has never yet been driven at its fastest speed because it becomes [...]
