proportion to the horse-power developed and to be stronger, at the same time, than any of its rivals. It is also fitted with new devices for delivering gasoline under an absolutely constant pressure and through a straining mechanism which insures the perfect cleanliness of the fluid. The carburetor, electric and lubrication systems also contain many novel features, as was recognized by the Patent Office at Washington, when twenty-two broad claims were allowed to go to patent, without a single existing patent being cited against them. Mr. Brooke's career has been picturesque and interesting. When a boy he ran away from home and joined a circus. Connected with the show was one of the old-fashioned aeronauts, who after ascending to a considerable height in a balloon, daily thrilled the natives by cutting loose from his support and dropping back to earth with the aid of a parachute. Being of a daring and reckless disposition Mr. Brooke occasionally took the place of the aeronaut and did the parachute leap on his own account. Thus early did he get an interest and some practical experience in the problems of aeronautics. In later years he turned his attention to music and for fifteen years he was the conductor of a well known band and orchestra in Chicago. During this period, also, he composed the music of a couple of comic operas and more than a hundred quick-steps and waltzes. But all the time he retained his interest in mechanics as applied to rapid transportation. When the internal-combustion engine was invented, bringing in its train the aeroplane and automobile, more and more of his attention was given to the resulting problems. Finally, with a number of profitable contracts in sight, he deliberately gave up his career as a band conductor and has since then spent every energy in the perfecting of his "nongyro" motor. Mr. Brooke's theories and discoveries as to the dangers of gyroscopic force in aeroplanes and automobiles do not conflict at all with the views held by Brennan, inventor of the famous mono-rail gyroscopic railroad system. Mr. Brooke points out that there is a great difference between a vehicle running free in the air or on the road and in one which is anchored in one plane by the grip of its wheels on the rail. That there has been a widespread popular delusion about the almost mirac ulous effect of the gyroscope as a safety appliance in vehicles of all descriptions there can be no doubt. Mr. Brooke's views as to the dangers of this popular superstition have recently received high endorsement by M. Bouchaud-Praecig, an eminent French engineer, who in recent lectures and magazine articles has taken exactly the same position. Mr. Brooke has invented and is now completing the construction of a new aeroplane, which will be fitted with his "non-gyro" engine and in which he hopes and, in fact, expects, to fully demonstrate the correctness of his radical views in mechanics. TELESCOPE BUILT BY PRINTER AMATEUR astronomers thrive in Pasadena, Cal. Inspired in most cases by the new five-foot reflecting telescope of the Carnegie Solar Observatory on Mt. Wilson, which was constructed in the observatory office in ONE OF PASADENA'S ENTERPRISING ASTRONOMERS AND HIS INSTRUMENT. Pasadena, a number of Pasadenans have made eight-inch replicas of the great sky searchers, and with them are doing much research work. An organization with a membership of about a dozen has been formed. E. H. Morse, a linotype operator, whose telescope is pictured herewith, made a complete set of machinery, with the aid of which his eight-inch mirror was ground to a degree of perfection in a few months. His experience seemed to disprove the contention of a colleague, Wendell P. Hoge, a railroad man, that it is impossible to construct a machine which will not, in the course of grinding a mirror, repeat the same motions at intervals, thus working the inch-thick plate of glass into zones which would destroy the efficiency of the mirror. Mr. Hoge began his mirror a dozen years ago in the East and completed it entirely by hand, placing the glass on an upturned barrel and walking around and around it as he rubbed the glass with fine emery and jeweler's rouge, to secure the desired parabolic surface. Other small telescopic mirrors are now in process of construction, while Prof. G. W. Ritchey, expert of the solar observatory, who directed work on the fivefoot mirror from which results were secured, said by scientists to be the best yet recorded, has made a nine-inch reflecting telescope for the students of the Pasadena High School. S NATURE MAN IN TAHITI AN FRANCISCO and Los Angeles still remember vividly the physiognomy and prophetic pose of W. Ernest Darling, the little-clad advocate of the simplest life, uncooked food and most simplified spelling, whom unceasing troubles with the police courts forced to leave the continent in search of a more suiting climate and less sophisticated environments. But the same prejudice which Darling found in his own home, in the university he attended for a time, and in the communities where he preached his "sermons on the Mount," awaited him in Hawaii and gave him in the end the choice of a jail sentence in Honolulu or of leaving the islands of his own "free will." The Nature Man took the offer of a leave, and crossed the line in his search of Eden, finding it in Tahiti, the main island of the Society Group, near the capital of French Oceania, Papecte. The booklets of the steamship companies abound, to be sure, with pictures of almost nude natives; but Darling found, to his sorrow, that even if there are people still to be seen in Tahiti, clad only in "pareus," Papeete's decorum requires as rigorously the antiquated pants as the old-fashioned shirt. After a short stand, the Nature Man had to give in; and so, on his way from the plantation to the town, he is wont to gradually acquire such articles of attire as the law imposes on him. He has his pants-limit, his shirt-limit, his bicycle station; and the said articles are deposited, in the reverse order, on the same places whenever he is returning, the bicycle having served only as a beast of burden for his bananas and mummy apples. High above civilization, out of the sight of the curious, on his premises, the Nature Man comes to his own and disembarrasses himself of all, if he is alone, and keeps the native pareu around his loins, if he happens to have visitors. Righteous Indignation "So you want a divorce, do you?" said the lawyer, peering over his glasses at the worried little man in front of him. "Yes, sir. I've stood just about all I can. My wife's turned suffragette and she is never at home.' "It is a pretty serious thing to break up a family, you know. Don't you think you had better try to make the best of it for a while? Perhaps it is only a passing fad." "That's what I have been doing, but there are some things a man can't stand. I don't mind the cooking and I haven't kicked on washing the dishes, but I do draw the line at running pink ribbons in my nightshirt to try to fool the children."-Success. Poor Papa "AND what did papa say when you asked him for my hand?" "I'd gladly tell you, but I'm afraid you'd never respect, his opinion any more."-Cleveland Plain Dealer. Like all of Us HIGGS "Are you not indulging in a good many luxuries for one in your position, old man?" BIGGS-"Yes, but, Great Scott! the necessities are all so thundering high." A Mean Reply "TALK about man!" exclaimed the suffragist. "What has man ever done for woman?" "He's furnished her with a model she's trying durned hard to imitate," came a voice from the rear of the hall.-Boston Transcript. A Mining Fraud "I THINK you said, 'Rastus, that you had a brother in the mining business in the West?" "Yeh, boss, that's right." "What kind of mining-gold mining, silver mining, copper mining?" "No, sah, none o' those; kalsomining."-Everybody's Magazine. |