TAKING THE GLARE FROM

STORE WINDOWS

THE glaring reflections on plate glass show windows make it impossible for passers-by to see what is inside the windows during the sunny, and therefore the best, hours of the day. But a New York store by a simple sort of visor-like arrangement over its windows has overcome this trouble, greatly to its own profit.

The shield is not an ordinary awning, as it was found that the streaks of light that come in around the edges of such greatly disturb the vision. This awning has light-proof side curtains with solid seam all the way up, and the windows being so free from bothersome reflections instantly attract and hold attention for whatever is on display behind them. The cool shade is also attractive.

PROVING THE FOREST

WATCH

STATISTICS, recently gathered in

the Idaho National Forest, have proved the value of the telephone and heliograph service operating in conjunction with a look-out tower. The Boisé forest suffered over thirty forest fires during the summer of 1914, and yet twenty-eight of these fires devastated less than ten acres, and fifteen of the twenty-eight covered less than one-fourth of an acre. A great area can be covered by a few men centrally located in a tower, provided they have sufficient means of communicating with helpers.

STREET SWEEPER PICKS UP MATERIAL

A NEW YORK CITY policeman has invented and built with his own hands a machine that sweeps the street, picks up the dirt and puts it into cans, with one continuous operation. Yonkers, New York, has had two of these machines in actual work during two months. All one has to do is to drive the car-horse or motor-and with a push of the finger, swing each can aboard as it automatically fills itself from the hopper.

HALF A MILLION CANDLE

POWER

THE most extensive scheme of decora

tive illumination ever carried out in any city was seen at New York's recent three hundredth anniversary, or Tercentenary Celebration, as it was called. The lights were strung from poles along both sides of the principal thoroughfares with big, powerful lights, alternately blue, orange and white, topping the poles. Eightyfive thousand electric lamps were used in the decorations, making a total blaze of more than half a million candlepower. This is more illumination than the combined lighting of two such towns. as Baltimore and Detroit. The lighting was along the route of the automobile parade and the grand pageant. Other streets and buildings were also illuminated.

end of a coiled spring. The other end of the coil is connected to a metal washer which hooks over a brad. The trigger is made of stiff wire bent to fit under the washer so as to raise it from the brad. The washer is connected by a cord with

HOW ANIMALS PHOTOGRAPH

THEMSELVES

BIRDS, household pets or the most

elusive wild animals may be photographed successfully in natural haunts and positions with the aid of simple home-made apparatus.

the shutter of the camera, which is then focused upon the apparatus that is to "take the picture", and everything is ready.

When the animal which is to photograph itself steps on the trigger, the washer is raised clear of the brad and the spring released. In the illustration, a bait is shown near the trigger to lure the prey. By means of this apparatus, when placed in the grass or covered with twigs and leaves, many an unsuspecting animal may be made to take its own

been thoroughly considered. The transportation of the material in dump cars would have involved the expense of heavier trestles and of laying and taking up tracks, besides the necessity of making the proper mixture right on the ground. Under the method adopted, gravel is screened and sized, mixed in the proper proportion with the cement, and delivered to the concrete mixer by one conveyer. The other conveyer handles the silt and gravel, used for the fill, and delivers the mixture to the dam. The latter belt is one of the largest ever used

season of the year, farmers do not need their teams, and equipment can be rented very cheaply to haul stone from ravines and waste places without incurring the expense of quarrying. It is necessary, of course, that there be a cold winter in order that the ice may attain sufficient strength to support teams and loaded barges; then when this ice melts in the spring, the material is automatically dropped, and the dam or shore-protection is in place.

Often, to make sure that material be. not carried off, the ice is cut and the dam

CAN RAISE A SUBMARINE

HEAVY modern modern naval equipment

must be handled by heavy machinery; and accordingly, such cranes as the one shown in the illustration. are in common use in navy yards. The crane shown in the picture is used in a German shipyard to handle heavy guns, turrets, and machinery. Its two hoists can handle 120 tons each, so the crane can pick up an ordinary submarine with ease.

This type of machinery is exceptionally valuable to Germany in the present great crisis.

complete in every way, so far as the purposes of the experiment were concerned. They were equipped with metal gutters and eaves troughs,

LIGHTNING ROD "COMES BACK"

WE

E all know that the writer who speaks of "taming the lightning" is indulging in fanciful speech, because Franklin's old lightning rod is the only means we have for warding off the danger from lightning; and even the lightning rod has been sneered at and maligned. But now also we know that this early device is fairly effective; and this knowledge is the result of many experiments, in which actual houses were caused to be struck.

The houses, however, were miniature ones erected in the laboratory of Professor Day of the Ontario Agricultural College, and the lightning was produced by a small static machine, such as may be found in any laboratory. The toy houses are

rain pipes, and all the familiar channels through which lightning usually courses when it hits a house; the doors were screened, and the structures were stood upon a metal plate, which thus represented the earth. Human figures made of metal were utilized, in order to determine the chances of life being destroyed, as well as property. In every case, the lightning rod was effective in protecting the little houses. against "lightning" which without the

rod would have done serious damage.

No doubt, one of the reasons that the lightning rod fell into disrepute was the rather questionable methods of some of the "lightning rod agents", who were not averse to sharp practices.