HOWARD GILL'S MACHINE AFTER IT HAD BEEN WRECKED IN THE COLLISION AND THE AVIATOR KILLED O By CHARLES SHEPARD WASHBURNE NE of the best pictures used by a big daily during the past year was a photograph made of the fatal mid-air collision of two aeroplanes. The machines had been racing (HERE around the Cicero, Illinois, aviation course at dusk. There were few general spectators on the grounds, much less, newspaper camera men. Both aeroplanes plunged downward to the earth Howard Gill, one of the aviators. was instantly killed and his machine was demolished. The next morning, seven columns across the page, in a Chicago paper, appeared a picture of the machines colliding. It was a perfect reproduction of the accident. It was technically correct and accurate in the minutest detail. The picture created comment all over the country. Aviation experts proclaimed it a marvel. The newspaper did not claim the picture as an actual photograph but merely a true reproduction. of the accident. The truch is that even the city editor was fooled. Not knowing that it would have been an 354 utter impossibility to make such a perfect picture at dusk, and not wishing to display his ignorance of press photography secrets, he kept mum. Hundreds of photographic skeptics would have been bothering him yet had he pretended to know how the picture was made. Instead he let the photographic staff argue with them. In reality, the trick was done in the printing in the dark room. During the afternoon of the accident the photographer had been at the field and had made separate negatives of each machine in the air. In making the picture, he simply printed the two negatives into one enlarged picture, thereby making a better photograph than could be accomplished had he actually photographed the accident. It was a neat, clean piece of work and a perfect example of the fact that the newspaper photographer today is required to be a genius at the psychological moment. It represented, too, the only possible answer to the question, which, from a grumbling city editor, has caused more first-class newspaper camera men to contract nervous breakdown and sacrifice their THE STEEPLEJACK ON THE TOWER jobs than any other phrase used in the business: "Have you got the picture?" When a press photographer fails to get certain pictures for numerous obvious reasons there is no excuse under the sun which will effect a pardon. The elements of the air, celebrities refusing to pose, fogged plates, an overtime exposure, and a dozen other things may make the newspaper "fotog" ready to throw up. the sponge. But these are the disadvantages that go with the job; and today the disadvantages are far less than even one year ago. In fact city editors will soon have to coin new phrases with which to reprimand their picture chasers. Press photographers seldom miss out on an assignment and if they do, it is maneuvers save the day when everything is apparently chaos. About a year ago one agitated city editor called his photographic staff on the carpet. "Get some one to invent a new press camera, or a flashlight, or a flashlight snapshot, or something that will make it impossible for the elusive celebrity to evade," he urged. And shortly afterward that contrivance was invented. It is the snapshot flashlight, an instrument which permits the photographer to make a flashlight exposure at any time of the day or night, and be sure of a picture. The invention has proved a great success. Almost any mechanic can make one, At in, operates the camera shutter. For ten years back, or since newspaper editors found it advantageous to decorate their pages THE NEWSPAPER CONTRIVANCE AND READY TO CATCH THE with news photographs, it has been an almost utter impossibility to make instantaneous flashlights. The spread flashlight was formerly used, but that took too much time to prepare prior to making a picture. With the snapshot flashlight, the operator places the amount of powder required, according to picture wanted, in his flash pan, places a cap underneath a mechanical trigger; attaches the antinuos release, which is fastened to the shutter, and then places the other end to his flashlamp. This is with a snapshot flashlight. With it he gets the celebrity, who is generally elusive, napping. And when the celebrity "naps" it is fatal, for ten to one the "fotog" has got a picture. That is really all he needs-a picture. Expert airbrush men and artists put on the finishing touches that make any kind of a picture appear in the paper like an oil painting. The present day press "fotog" has made pictures from airships, from fire escapes, and in fact most any place considered too perilous for any ordi A NIGHT FIRE SCENE WHICH CALLED A PRESS PHOTOGRAPHER FROM HIS BED TO GET A PICTURE done in a jiffy. He then sets his shutter at whatever speed he prefers to work at, and according to the amount and kind of powder used. With one pull of the lever the powder is ignited and the shutter is operated instantaneously, thus allowing the operator to get a picture. A high illuminating powder is used. In dark train sheds, corridors outside of courtrooms, in jails, and numerous dark nooks where the light is extremely gray, the operator will TO CAST ASIDE THE MAGNETIC W COMPASS By RENÉ BACHE HAT would navigation do without the magnetic compass? The Chinese are said to have known the use of this instrument for more than four thousand years. It has been justly considered one of the most valuable possessions of mankind; and until very recently the possibility that it could be replaced with another contrivance, better and more practical, seems scarcely to have suggested itself to anybody. But now the United States Navy is preparing to replace all the magnetic compasses on board of its ships with the "gyro-compass". This is a simple apparatus of novel construction which might almost be said to be as far superior to the magnetic compass as the latter is to the mere guesswork of a sailor afloat on a raft. Few people are aware that there exists a force, absolutely changing and undeviating, and far more powerful than the earth's magnetism, which may be employed instead of magnetism for determining direction on the earth's surface. The familiar contrivance known a "gyroscope", when properly mounted, renders this directive force available and acts as a compass of highest precision. The force in question is the rotation of the earth. The gyro-compass re ceives its directive power as an effect of this rotation acting together with gravity upon a revolving wheel. According to calculations made by naval experts, its power is two hundred and ninety-one times as great as that of the magnetic compass; and it never hesitates nor makes mistakes. It is hard to say where human civilization would be today, if mankind had not long possessed the magnetic compass. Without its help, navigators could have made their way over the wide seas only by timorous gropings. Thus the instrument has come to be regarded as a steadfast reliance, and a favorite simile for changeless loyalty is, "true as the needle to the pole." As a matter of fact, however, the fidelity of the needle to the pole is nothing more than a poor, weak tendency to point somewhere near a constantly shifting spot many hundreds of miles away from the pole. When the needle can find an excuse for pointing THE GYRO-COMPASS. SHOWING somewhere else, it always does so. The untrustworthiness of the magnetic compass is, indeed, a cause of constant anxiety to every navigator, who spends much of his time in correcting as well as he can its vagarious deviations. and in checking its readings. Within recent years the puzzle has been complicated by the wide use of steel in shipbuilding-a steel ship being a huge magnet, and acting as such upon the magnetic compass. It is claimed for the new gyro-compass, on the other hand, that it has not merely a tendency, but an obstinate determination to point correctly at all times, and cannot be seduced from its allegiance. Furthermore, it indicates the true north, instead of pointing to the incorrect and variable "magnetic north" of the oldstyle compass. It to be affected by the earth's rotation, the axis of the latter being four thousand miles away. But if the observer holds it in his hands, and himself rotates by whirling on his heel, he becomes in a manner an artificial earth with relation to the gyro. When thus rotating to the left, his head becomes the north pole and his feet the south pole. The way to make the experiment is to fasten two short pieces of string to the wire frame of the gyro at opposite points, and at right-angles to the axis of the wheel. Fit a card upon the ring-as shown in one of the illustrations and mark upon it the four cardinal points. Hold the strings taut, one in each hand, with the strings in the line of the radius of an imaginary sphere which has for its center the middle of the observer's body. A glance at the accompanying drawing will show just IF THE GYRO-TOP IS THUS SECURED. AND THE PERSON is an instrument of The principle involved may be illustrated with an ordinary gyroscope top -the sort of toy sold by the sidewalk vender of playthings. Out of such a top one can make a compass, and see it "seek the pole." It is an experiment sufficiently curious and in how this should be done. Then (the top being set spinning), as the observer whirls on his heel in one direction, one pole on the card comes uppermost, and remains so. As soon as he whirls in the opposite direction, the uppermost pole instantly flops over and points to his feet instead of his head. One should understand, to start The law of the gyroscope has acted, and with, that a gyroscope always tends, the compass has followed the pole. Every when spinning, so to adjust itself that time this reversal is made, and the pole is its axis is parallel to the axis of the changed from the bottom to the top earth. In other words, the axis points of the imaginary sphere, or vice versa, due north and south-whence the use- the little gyro-compass will be seen to fulness of the contrivance as a com- turn on the instant, following the pole, pass. with an energy quite surprising. Its The toy "gyro" is too crude an affair action, indeed, is so vigorous as to MADE TO POINT UP teresting to be BY WHIRLING FROM RIGHT TO LEFT, "NORTH" IS |