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touring car of well known make was bought, and ordered fitted with a specially designed body, as seen in the illustration. This resembles the body of an automobile opera bus, but instead of entering the closed portion from the rear, there is a door at the front at the left of the driver's seat, the usual seat on the left side being removed. This body is built around a steel safe of considerable capacity that cannot be removed. The interior of the body is well lighted by large windows on all sides and these windows are protected by steel wire netting like that used on express wagons. A chair is placed inside for the use of the bank messenger who has charge of the safe. He and the driver are armed to resist possible attempts at a hold up, and the operating mechanism of the car is so arranged that any one unfamiliar with the machine cannot run it, thereby preventing thieves from overpowering the attendants and running away with the car and the entire contents of the safe.

Each depositor in the bank who desires to have collections made by the institution's automobile is provided with a small metal cash box which is handed over to the bank messenger when the machine stops at the door. A memorandum of its contents is also given to him and he gives the depositor a receipt for one box, "contents unknown." The box is then dropped through an opening in the safe, arranged like the drop in a letter box, and the car proceeds on its way. There are only two keys to the box, one retained by the depositor and the other by the receiving teller at the bank. Upon being opened at the bank, the contents of the box are counted and the amount credited to the depositor's account and a credit slip returned to him together with the empty box.

It is the intention to make regular trips

over certain routes with the automobile each day. Beginning at 3 p. m., calls will be made at the large retail stores. until 5 o'clock. From 9 to 10 p. m. the small cash taken in at the box offices of the theaters will be gathered up, and from 11 to midnight or 1 o'clock calls will be made at the restaurants in the theater district. This service is to be extended from Fourteenth street as far north on the island as 125th street.

Business houses having large weekly or monthly payrolls will also be relieved of the danger of having large sums of cash carried through the streets of the city by one or two messengers. All that they will need to do will be to telephone to the bank asking for the amount needed and stating the denominations of the bills and coins. and coins. If their signatures are sufficiently well known at the bank, the cash will be sent to them in a box in the safe and their checks will be accepted in exchange by the messenger in the automobile.

The convenience and safety of the system is apparent, and the ability of the automobile to cover a great territory in a short time will enable the bank to secure and retain the best class of patrons in an area many times larger than that from which the ordinary bank is able to secure deposits, as business houses when they have to send deposits by their own messengers find it most convenient to do their banking with the institution nearest at hand. It is the removal of this necessity by bringing the bank to the patron's door, in effect, that will place the Night and Day Bank in such an advantageous position as in self-defence almost to compel the other banks to adopt equally progressive methods in keeping with the enterprising spirit of the times. The automobile bank is a clever invention of clever men.

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Chinese Floating Dock

A MOST interesting floating dock has

been placed in operation in one of the Chinese harbors, as shown in the accompanying illustration, which pictures a large ocean steamer in position for painting and overhauling the hull. This electrically operated floating dock was constructed for use in the Tsingtau harbor by German engineers at Oberhausen, Rheinland. It has a capacity of 16,000 tons. A large number of electric motors are utilized for hoisting and for other purposes, including the raising of the dock by pumping out water from the ten compartments

of the pontoons. Centrifugal pumps are employed for this purpose and the five pontoons can be pumped out in two hours, raising a ship of 16,000 tons capacity in about that time.

The electric controllers are all mounted in a single central operating room, so that all of the motors may be handled by a single operator and the water pumped from the various compartments of the pontoons, regulated as desired. Electric lights are provided, and a complete electric power station is installed supplying current for electric hoisting service, electrically operated tools and current for both arc and incandescent lamps. For

HUGE DRY-DOCK AT TSINGTAU, CHINA.

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anchoring this dock in the Tsingtau harbor there are eight stud link chains and four other similar chains. These chains are raised and lowered by electrically operated hoisting mechanism all controlled from the central operating room.

WELLS STREET BRIDGE, CHICAGO.

The dock has a total weight of 8,000 tons

of this example of engineering skill, is what is known as the Visitacion Valley Point Cut. From this cut about 750,000 cubic yards of rock and earth have been excavated. In width it is 300 feet at the top and sixty feet at the bottom.. The total length is 1,250 feet, and depth 150 feet. The cost of this part of the work approximated $1,000,000. In spite of the magnitude of the task, this part of the work was completed in no less time than that of other sections within the ninemile strip.

The maximum curvature along the entire cut is but two degrees. The maximum grade is three tenths of one per cent, or three feet in 1,000 feet. So level will the tracks be that a car cannot start of itself through gravitation.

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Where Traffic Centers

and is one of the most up-to-date and CHICAGO'S traffic,

best equipped floating docks in any of the Chinese harbors.

Giant Railroad Cut

A NEW cut-off on the Southern Patance into San Francisco by nine miles, at a cost of more than $7,000,000. The idea, though some 20 years old, remained for President Harriman to put into execution. His predecessors were deterred by the enormous cost of the feat.

cific Railroad will shorten the dis

The course of the cut-off is along the shore line of the southern arm of San Francisco Bay. To the north extends a chain of high, rugged hills; to the south, the waters of the Bay. The country is the roughest imaginable. There was no choice of location for the engineers, and the route taken is almost a straight line. It plunges through hills, cuts along the bases of precipices, and crosses long and deep arms of the bay, necessitating great fills, some of them thousands of feet long. In the short distance of nine miles there are five tunnels, whose total length equals two miles.

One of the most remarkable features

HICAGO'S traffic, owing to the steady growth of the city, is becoming so congested that it has overlapped itself four times at the Wells street bridge. At this point the elevated railroad runs over the top of the bridge while below on the street level the trolley cars, wagons, pedestrians, etc., move. Then comes the river with the tugs, freighters, and pleasure craft passing back and forth. Forty feet below, under the river's bed, the United States mail

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