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characters in any system of shorthandthe dots and dashes, big and little circles, long and short characters, the curved and straight lines, and the light and shaded lines-accurately and while going at any speed requires months and often years. And then there is the serious question, already referred to, of legibility in transcribing these characters after they are once made; for often the same character will mean different things when above, below or on a line, different things when shaded, and still other things when lengthened or shortened.

The dictating machine is said to do away with this question of legibility entirely, since it writes in plain type-letters, so that no matter how fast one writes the letters are always properly executed. For this reason one person can read what another has written just as easily as he can his own work, a thing which is practically impossible in shorthand. It also leaves a permanent record, which can be transcribed at any time; and this is another advantage over shorthand, for every stenographer knows that the longer the time that elapses between the taking of shorthand dictation and its transcription, the more difficult the task

becomes.

It is possible for an expert user of the typewriter to take slow dictation directly on the machine, the average speed in this connection being about sixty words per minute, which means that the typewriter is given about four hundred strokes, including spacing, in this length of time. As the new dictating machine is designed to write over a word a stroke, the spacing being done automatically, it will be seen that even if it is struck only half the number of times that is required in ordinary use on the typewriter, it will

THE COPY HOLDER, FROM WHICH THE TYPIST READS HER MACHINE-MADE NOTES.

still be writing almost four times as many words as the latter, and more than twice as many as the average stenographer can take down in shorthand in the same length of time.

These

The most remarkable feature of this machine is the keyboard, which contains only twenty keys. All of the missing letters on the keyboard are secured by combining certain other letters. combinations form what is called a code, and it comprises the entire brain work in connection with the machine. The code is so small-there are only eight combinations for letters and ten for figures that it can be memorized in a couple of hours. It has been figured, however, that the average boy or girl, just out of school, can memorize it and read fluently in a week or two any matter that may be written on the machine.

The keys are built to fit the fingers, and as each finger has but two keys to operate, the keyboard is always under immediate control. At the top of the machine is a bar, which may be struck in conjunction with the top row of letters and with any finger. This is called the figure bar and prints an asterisk in the centre of the piece of paper on which the writing is done. The code tells that

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are printed on the same line with the asterisk, they become figures instead of letters.

Another interesting feature of the machine is the rewinder, which automatically rewinds the paper as fast as it leaves the keys. The power generated by striking the keys, or any set of keys, is also the power that operates the rewinder. The paper is wound upon a spool, which is removable for the purpose of placing on the copy holder. The copy holder is a separate contrivance designed to facilitate the transcription of notes. By pressing a key on one side of the copy holder the paper is fed forward page by page, so to speak, as fast as may be desired.

In business offices where speed is an essential factor the dictating machine should result in a great saving of time. One person can transcribe while another

is taking dictation, thus having mail ready for the dictator to sign almost as fast as the dictation is finished. It has been figured that four operators on the dictating machine can do the work of five in shorthand-a clear saving of twenty per cent. And time is money. Consider what this would mean in offices where from twenty to a hundred, and sometimes even as many as three hundred stenographers are employed.

The dictating machine should also be the means of reducing the cost of tuition to students of shorthand very materially. Probably a quarter of a million of new students are turned out by the shorthand schools of this country each year. As the time required to learn to use the dictating machine should not exceed two weeks, while a course in shorthand may run anywhere from as many months to a year-well, figure it out for yourself.

MOVING-PICTURE PEOPLE TO TALK

HEREAFTER the phonographic discs

of popular songs will be accompanied by picture-discs to illustrate them, when the device of a California inventor is placed on the market. The song illustrator is a very ingenious device which can be attached to an ordinary talking machine and its principles may be briefly explained as follows: a disc about the size of a song record contains sixteen lantern slides which are set in small circular openings near the circumference. This picture-disc is adjusted so that the motor of the phonograph causes it to revolve, a couple of inches or so at a time, stopping for a brief interval as each picture is brought before the lens. The lens and light which are designed on the principle of the stereopticon, can be adjusted to the ordinary type of horn, and electricity, gas or kerosene may be used to project the pic

The latter is a

ture upon the screen. hoop of about 16-inch diameter over which a piece of thin, white cloth is drawn taut. It is attached to the flare of the horn by an adjustable bracket so that the screen hangs in front of the large opening.

The machine shown in the accompanying illustration is equipped with a 16 candle-power electric light and is designed for parlor entertainment, but by using a more powerful light the pictures can be projected on a much larger screen at a distance, thus serving for use in a hall or auditorium. By using a larger song-disc, fifty or more slides can be set at the circumference, and it would serve for advertising purposes. This ingenious device is the invention of a clerk in a Los Angeles music store, Mr. Harry Clubb, who

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TALKING MACHINE WHICH WILL ACCOMPANY

MOVING PICTURES.

has spent two years in perfecting his invention.

1

AUTO COMPETES WITH RAILROAD

T

By

LEONARD MCKEE

HE West is supposed to look to the East for new ideas, but occasionally the coldly practical minds of Westerners evolve an idea far ahead of what is considered within the range of possibilities to the Eastern minds. For instance, five years ago, the East did not consider the automobile a practical utility, yet away down in the Southwest a little, grey-eyed man sank all of his available funds in machines and established an auto route to compete with one of the greatest railroad systems on earth. His line was a success and now he not only carries passengers but holds the mail contract as well.

It was in the summer of 1905 when a doctor brought the first auto into the Pecos Valley. At Roswell, a hotel man, J. W. Stockard, became interested in the possibilities of the machines and bought one. After running it around some, he conceived the idea of an auto line between Roswell and Torrance, New Mexico. At that time, in order to get from Albuquerque to Roswell, you had to go north to Trinidad, Colorado, then to Amarilla, Texas, and there you could get a train into Roswell. But by driving overland to Torrance, a hundred and five miles, you could make far better connections. Stockard figured he could make money with a regular auto between the two points, Roswell and Torrance. Instead of taking the regular wagon road he set out one day with a compass and a camping outfit and staked a new path across the rolling

prairie. Along this path he scraped two bare streaks, and that completed his road.

From the beginning the line was a success. Traveling people saved both money and time as well as having one of the oddest trips to be had in this country. Nine hours were consumed in making the hundred mile run and the machines never broke down. Finally an agitation was started for the route to carry the mail. It took as long for a letter to go to Kansas City as for one to go to Albuquerque, and the daily papers were two days coming through. The railroad naturally opposed the move, but in the fall of 1905 the mail contract was taken from the Santa Fe and given to the Roswell Auto Company. As the line connected at Torrance with the Rock Island and the Santa Fe Central this brought the mail from the East as well as from the West.

In July, 1910, the Santa Fe finished

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AT THE HALFWAY HOUSE. WHERE NEW DRIVER AND CAR ENTER FOR

THE RACE AGAINST STEAM.

their great Belen Cutoff between Belen and Clovis, and to facilitate handling mail the route was changed to Vaughn where the Santa Fe crosses the Rock Island. The distance was about the same but Stockard had to build an entirely new road. This was easy, for by this time his inventive mind had evolved a patent road drag which broke, smoothed and

rolled a new road all in one operation.

The cars which were bought when the line started were two-cylinder chain-drive cars of about twenty horse power, and were used continuously on the line till this fall when three new cars of the same make but far more powerful, four cylinder, and carrying seven passengers were bought and put into operation. The

They can make the trip between Vaughn and Roswell in nine hours if necessary, and said so. Stockard said he could beat nine hours so the Government did a little figuring and called on him to make the trip in five hours flat, if he wanted the new contract. He ran one of the cars through and set four and a half hours as the new schedule time. This

ONE OF THE SPECIAL AUTO BRIdges in the Desert.

old cars had each run a little over 130.000 miles on the line, and are still in use around Roswell, one being the "ambulance" car at the garage.

With the change to Vaughn came an increase in the amount of mail, in fact so great a quantity had to be carried as to necessitate the use of an extra car on many occasions. When no extra was run there was no room for passengers. So Stockard retired to think and in due course the "dingle" wagon was built. This is a little rubber-tired canvas covered wagon which is hitched to the back of the motor car with a patent connection (to make it track) and in which the mail and baggage is carried. The big machines have no trouble hauling this car when it carries up to a thousand pounds of mail, and can easily make the whole trip on the high gear.

As there is something like $9,000.00 a year paid for the hauling of the mail, the railroad again tried to get the contract which expired a short while back.

means an average of between twentyfive and thirty miles an hour, counting out the time necessarily consumed in the slow driving in town and on bad places. However, the cars have no trouble making it though it is hard on the drivers as the strain is so constant. The automail driver cannot loll back occasionally as can his brother in the engine-cab, for one second's relaxation might mean a bad "smash." So the drivers and cars are changed at a lonely ranch in the middle of the desert, thus each driver makes the round trip every three days. This plan too, prevents any possibility of a passenger having to "lay out" all night in case of accident for if a car becomes overdue at any point on the line the reserve car goes out to get it. No passenger has ever had to lay out, but there have been occasions when the mail could not get through on account of the deep snow. A storm which ties up the auto line also blocks the railroad and often a storm which blocks the railroad does not bother the autos much for cars are running back and forth all the time and the road is kept fairly clear.

In the narrow washes or "arroyos" the snow will occasionally pile up and then a big home made car called the "Yellow Kid" is used to buck the drifts till a way is broken through. Last winter one of the drivers rammed the Kid into a drift and it took two weeks to pull it out.

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The south entrance to the diversion tunnel of the great irrigation project in southern Idaho.

IDAHO'S HUGE MAGIC DAM”

P

By

DAY ALLEN WILLEY

AST volcanic eruptions have resulted in a very large area of southern Idaho being covered with a deposit of what is known as volcanic ash. This material is known for its richness when properly irrigated, as is shown in the Hood River valley in Oregon, lying between the extinct volcanoes of Mount Baker and Mount Hood. Here orchards produce some of the finest fruit grown in America, especially apples.

The portion of Idaho covered with volcanic ash caused plans to be considered with a view to irrigating a part of it from what are known as the Bigwood River and Littlewood River which rise in the ranges of the Smoke and Sawtooth Mountains. The water shed serving these rivers is estimated as sufficient to irrigate fully 150,000 acres which are

located in four sections of the state, the largest tract aggregating 55,000 acres.

To conserve the water necessary to insure permanent and adequate irrigation it was necessary to form a barrier across a gorge through which the main river flows. The formation at this point is of such a character that it would be impossible to erect a masonry dam. The distance from the nearest railway transportation, twenty-five miles, also entered into the problem. The natural course of the river is over a bottom which is composed of sand, some clay and strewn with bolders and rock fragments which have fallen from the canyon sides, and have been washed down by flood currents. The depth of this material has been found to be as great as sixty feet lying above the foundation of hard rock. On each side of the canyon the forma

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