B

ECAUSE it is entirely new, and unknown abroad, the secret of the telephoto camera is jealously guarded by the War Department and the descriptions of it vouchsafed by the officers of the Signal Corps are vague and lacking in detail. No photographs of the camera itself are allowed to be published and the specifications of the apparatus used are carefully locked in the archives of the War Department.

The use of the telephoto camera is simplicity itself.

The scout, carrying the camera and a tripod, is sent out on horseback in advance of the main force of the army. He knows the general direction in which the enemy lies and it is his duty to obtain a clear picture of their encampment or line of march -a highly dangerous undertaking with the old-style camera.

Once the scout locates the enemy, however, he sets up his tripod, points his camera in the direction of the opposing force, focuses

it with the aid

of powerful field glasses and snaps several pictures of the army at a distance of from five to ten miles.

To the naked eye the troops at that distance would appear like tiny specks, if they were visible at all. To the eye of the telephoto camera the smallest detail is distinct and separate.

The secret of the new camera of the War Department lies in the fact that it is a snapshot telephoto requiring only a quarter of a second for each exposure. The composition of the lens and the arrangement of the interior of the camera are also said to be unique.

As soon as the scout has taken his pictures of the enemy at a distance where they are almost invisible, he packs up his apparatus, mounts his horse, and gallops back to headquarters where he finds a portable dark room already set up. Within twenty minutes the plate has been developed and dried in a solution of carbonate of potash, which renders the emulsion so

scout returned to camp with the plates, a large photograph of the enemy is ready to be placed before the members of the general staff for study and decision as to future movements.

While this photograph is being examined, the dark-room operator is making a "positive" or lantern slide from the original plate. In a short time this, too, is ready for use and the commanding officer and his aides are enabled to see on a

ELECTRIC SEMAPHORE Dispatches and orders can be sent at night by this new army wireless. The soldier waves a wand with an electrically lighted tip.

49

telephone and telegraph combined, the whole apparatus being packed in a box which one can almost carry in one's pocket.

Under war conditions the line
of communication represented
by an insulated wire is rap-
idly unwound from a reel
cart and carried forward to
the most advanced outpost,
either lying
lying along
along the
ground or tossed over the
branches of trees to provide
against interruption or tan-
gling.

When it is desired to send a

message, the man with the instrument taps the wire by fixing upon it a clip which bites through the insulation. He can then communicate with headquarters, giving information or asking for orders, either by working the buzzer in the Morse code or by talking over the telephone, a little cup, attachable to his ear, serving as the receiver.

In this manner it is possible

to keep headquarters informed of every detail happening at the outposts.

A

NEW type of bridge now being introduced extensively in Kansas by the highway engineer of that State promises to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in Kansas' bridge bills. It is a bridge adapted to streams that carry little water normally, but which are subject to occasional wild escapades when the water runs at flood height for a few hours, carrying everything-bridges included-before it.

The "low water" bridge, designed by W. S. Gearhart, costs only one-third as much as the high bridges usually built along these streams; it is of reinforced concrete and, therefore, doesn't wash out. High waters flow harmlessly over it. Mr. Gearhart is the state engineer at the Kansas Agricultural Col

lege-the state's highway chief-and a large part of the good reputation he is making in Kansas as a highway improver is due to his introduction of these low water bridges.

Other points of excellence in this type, aside from those mentioned, make it the ideal bridge for many Kansas streams. It is built very low to the bed of the stream, the underside of the bridge floor being only from twenty to thirty inches above the surface of the water, as it runs normally. This places the structure on a level with the road, thereby eliminating the long pulls that are necessary on the steep approaches to the high bridge. If one remembers that Kansas farmers have some pretty heavy loads of crops, occasionally, it is easy to see why the

51

low bridges have become popular with farmers.

It required considerable argument on the part of the state engineer to convince some boards of county commissioners that a bridge over which flood waters ran high would be successful. The commissioners of one county in which some of the first of this kind were eventually built were particularly opposed to it at the outset. They had asked the state engineer to locate a high steel bridge over a small stream that was nearly dry most of the time.

Mr. Gearhart viewed the site

MORE EXPENSIVE TO BUILD Worst of all, the iron bridge does not withstand floods.

and recommended a low water bridge. He set forth the reasons why it would be better than a high steel one, which, to build it far enough above flood waters to be safe, would cost a good deal of money and, when completed,

THE LOW WATER BRIDGE COSTS BUT A THIRD OF WHAT THE STEEL TYPE DOES

would require a four-horse team to haul a load of wheat over it. When the commissioners argued that a bridge over which water could flow wasn't a bridge, the engineer reminded them that the high waters lasted for only a few hours every year.

In Wabaunsee County not long ago the commissioners were petitioned for a high steel structure to bridge a stream in the southern part of the county. The type asked for, even if built of light steel, would have cost fourteen hundred dollars. The Wabaunsee commissioners turned down the request of the petitioners and built a low water concrete bridge. The cost was only four hundred dollars. As a result. of this saving of one thousand dollars, Wabaunsee County has built others.