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work which, while being started at any desired moment, cannot be arrested in the same way as any one of the four effects referred to.

It may be said that the experimental difficulties are less in the case of these telemechanical effects than in wireless telegraphy. The operator is informed of the results obtained by him by means of checking signals arranged on the distributing axle. The latter carries for this effect outside of the interrupting discs above mentioned, other discs serving the purpose of checking and each of these is provided with a tooth. Each effect has its special checking disc, closing, by means of a tooth, the circuit of the induction coil of the

printed at the bottom of this page.

This ingenious outfit for transmitting mechanical effects to a distance can be used for a multitude of purposes. By providing 25 discs controlling as many effects, the apparatus may thus be used to print the letters of the alphabet, and so constitute a wireless telegraphic type

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FIG. 8. EFFECTS CONTROLLED FROM SENDING STATION. PISTOL FIRED AND BALL LIFTED BY WIRELESS ACTION.

self-acting telegraph and thus giving out a checking spark at each revolution as long as the corresponding effect is continued. These checking sparks, produced in the intervals between the other sparks, are recorded automatically on the telegraph tape of the starting station. They are recognized by their lengthy shape. Whenever the operator sees one of these lengthy flashes in front of one of the ordinary signalling dots, he will be sure that the effect in question has been obtained as desired, the checking dash disappearing immediately after the discontinuance of the effect. The aspect of the telegraph tape, including the checking dashes in addition to the ordinary dots, is seen in the lower part of figure 6,

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writer. A steam engine or a railway train may be started or stopped by its means, the lamp in a lighthouse lighted or put out, airships, as well as submarines can be controlled without crew, torpedoes launched, mines exploded, etc. It is moreover easy to eliminate the disturbing effects due to accidental sparks coming from other sources. While the apparatus in question has not yet been used outside of the laboratory, Dr. Branly is actively engaged in developing it to the greatest possible perfection, and fitting it for commercial use."

The writer is indebted for the photographs above reproduced as well as for the particulars relating to Dr. Branly's apparatus to the courtesy of the inventor.

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Water-Wheel Saves Big Farm

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By James Cooke Mills

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REMARKABLE drainage system, which effectually and quickly drains a 1,200-acre farm owned by the Oneida Farm Company, near Saginaw, Michigan, has recently been completed, so that there is not a square foot of land, formerly mere waste of marsh, which can not now be utilized. The system consists of two principal factors, namely, a series of high and wide dikes with broad and deep ditches; and a monster water wheel, of which photographs are reproduced.

The first factor, the dike, which entirely surrounds the farm, is seven miles long and about twenty feet high, leveled off at the top and set out with young

willows. It was built up by an immense dredge, digging out its own channel, beginning at the river, and throwing up the earth on the outside, so that in the one operation, the opening up of an enormous ditch, thirty-four feet wide at the bottom, and about sixteen feet deep, was also accomplished. Five smaller ditches run straight across the farm, joining both ends with the main ditch.

At one corner of the farm, in a special power house, is located the immense water-wheel and the apparatus to operate it. In some parts of the country, in the western states, crude water wheels, fitted with buckets, are used to irrigate waste barren lands adjacent to the streams. Such wheels are operated by the force of the current of the stream, and many

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GREAT DRAINAGE WHEEL UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

Its size may be gauged from the figure of the workman at extreme left of picture.

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all-important factor in lifting the water from the main ditch to the river beyond. It is of much interest on account of its novelty and great capacity, and also in being the only wheel so used in this country. The success of the system is evident from its having drained the seven miles of thirty-four-foot ditch of five to six feet of water in a little more than ten hours.

At the corner, the two branches of the main ditch lead into a concrete sluiceway, four feet wide, sixteen feet deep, and thirty feet long, which is cut directly through the dike. In this flume the immense wheel is set on an axis, and placed so snugly that the edge of its wood paddles are but a quarter inch from the concrete walls of the sluice. The wheel, made entirely of steel, is twenty-eight feet in diameter and four feet wide, and is supported on a six-inch shaft, which holds it in the sluiceway so that the bottom very nearly touches the ends of the paddles. There are sixteen of these paddles, which are not set parallel to the spokes of the wheel, but at a decided angle, to permit the water as it reaches the top of the six-foot lift, to flow off more readily. Around the outside of both rims of the wheel are bolted heavy continuous

gearing, as shown in the photograph. It is evident that to operate this immense wheel, lifting 2,000 barrels of water per minute, requires considerable power which must be positive and reliable. The apparatus used is very simple but strong, and, when operated at its greatest capacity, the wheel will take a foot of water off an acre of land in six minutes. Operated every day under the conditions here existing, the great wheel could drain at all seasons of the year, a tract of 10,000 acres.

The propelling force consists of a steam engine of the ordinary slide-valve type, developing 120 horse power, and a countershaft. This countershaft runs across the outside rim of the big wheel, on a horizontal line with its axis, and carries two twelve-inch spur-gears, with five-inch face, which engage the gearing on the wheel rims. On the other end of the twelve-foot shaft is a broad thirty

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The Blood-Price of Progress

By George Ethelbert Walsh

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dous industrial progress is achieved at an annual cost of 500,000 human beings killed and crippled. More men than were killed and wounded during the civil war lose their lives yearly in the great industries of peace. Today there are half a million people alive and in good health, whose death-warrants have already been signed by their industrial masters. They have been sentenced to death or to mutilation because human life is the cheapest kind of raw material. It is impossible to escape the charge that we fail to encourage protective measures which will insure to the individual the

minimum of danger in earning a livelihood.

The tribute in human sacrifice which we pay for our material progress is sometimes appalling. When the death-rate reaches startling figures, a reaction follows, and the demand for preventive measures grows persistent. But the annual toll in life in small ways goes on heedlessly. Inventions and safeguards are made in some part of the world to correct a destructive evil, but for lack of detail and knowledge their use is often merely local. There is no law to enforce their adoption, and the sacrifice of human victims to greed and ignorance continues.

Of the thousands of inventions and devices made in this country to safeguard workmen in the different industries prob

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MINERS USING OXYGEN INHALING APPARATUS IN A POISONED ATMOSPHERE.

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ably not more than a hundred are of general public knowledge, and probably not more than half as many more are in general use among the employees of the large operating companies. The lack of uniformity of safety appliances, and ignorance concerning them nullify the best efforts of inventive geniuses and continue the high death rate among workmen in many lines of industrial life. The prejudice, born of ignorance, manifested among many classes of employees, which refuses to accept innovations intended to eliminate danger, is a real factor in the present movement to safeguard life that cannot be ignored.

In the opening of the Museums of Security at Amsterdam and Milan, the hope of educating workmen to a higher appreciation of the value of scientific safeguards was kept in view fully as much as the encouragement of employers of labor to adopt the latest devices for protecting their workmen. The arrangement of the exhibits with this view in mind has been pre-eminently successful. It is not uncommon to see hundreds of employees with their families studying with enthusiasm the various devices invented for their special protection.

The modern Museum of Security deals with present, vital questions of the day. Its very life-like exhibits appeal to the man of action and progress. The safety devices are in actual operation so far as it is possible, and the eye and judgment are appealed to by concrete illustrations. The roar of machinery greets the ear of the visitor everywhere. The eye is captivated by queer screens, life-like wax figures flashing danger signals, helmeted and goggled effigies, and miniature. mines, shops, factories, and mills. Here are collected the hundred or more successful inventions for protecting life and limb in all the various industries of the world, for all the world has contributed to the collection of safety devices, and the genius of no one nation is here exclusively exhibited. It is a clearing house for all the ideas which strive to eliminate danger from industrial occupations.

Visiting superintendents of large plants can witness the working advantages of model establishments. In the engine room, the whirring fly-wheels, shafts and piston-rods are painted in vivid red.

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by hoods, which, while not interfering with the operators or their work, effectually protect them from danger. In fact, every imaginable machine that threatens to kill or maim careless workmen has its special safeguard. Some of the most modern machines offer points of weakness for which no solution has yet been discovered, and liberal rewards are offered for inventions which will cover such cases. The modern open-type dynamos and generators are opposed on the ground that they threaten the life of some ignorant or careless engineer or assistant.

Numerous strange devices are worn by the effigies to protect the nose, throat and lungs from inhaling foul and dangerous fumes and gases. The stone cutters and lathe workers are protected by

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