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above the ground, is a heavy steel cable. Below the balloon is suspended a car for the conveyance of passengers to the top of the peak. The descent is caused by the pressure of water, which is poured into a large tank at the upper end of the road and serves as ballast on the return trip. Ten passengers may be carried at a time and the speed of the car, in either direction, is regulated by the conductor.

CORNER IN LIVING ROOM OF THE WASHINGTON CAR.

Water and oil for the gasoline engine which propels the house-auto are carried in large tanks under the floor.

The house-auto has been completed just in time for Mr. Washington's vacation, which he will spend, with his wife, in driving across country from Chicago to Portland, Maine.

Just how popular the house-auto will become is a problem for the future. It would seem, however, that tourists who are familiar with the accommodations offered by country hotels might easily prefer to live as well as travel in their automobiles. At any rate, Mr. Washington has added another to the long list of "firsts," won by his distinguished an

cestor.

Running a Railroad by Balloon

RUNNING up the side of a mountain, near Salzburg, Germany, is the most unique railroad in the world. A single steel rail has been laid from the base to the top of the mountain, and over it runs a sliding steel shoe. Between this shoe and a big hydrogen gas balloon, which floats about forty feet

Install Mechanical
Slate Pickers

FROM Pennsylvania comes the news that one branch of child-labor may be abolished. In the coal mine regions of Pennsylvania are employed some 24,000 breaker boys, who pick out the slate from the coal at the collieries. The Delaware & Hudson Coal Company has installed a mechanical slate picker in its colliery at Wilkes-Barre and the report is that it works successfully. Twelve boys and the mechanical spiral slate pickers now take the place of the three hundred boys who would be required in a plant of that size under the old régime. The company will probably place these mechanical pickers in all its other plants.

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Cars Collide for Fun THE latest thing in the freak amuse

ment line for summer resorts is known as the Leap Frog Railway. Its name describes exactly what this remarkable railway does. Two electric cars, each carrying 32 to 40 comfortablyseated passengers, meet in a head-on collision, while traveling along a single track. Instead of a smash-up, with its consequent horror of torn and mangled human beings, that would ordinarily ensue, one of these cars easily and gracefully glides up a set of curved rails with which the roof of the other car is provided, passes over it and slides down to the track beyond.

The Leap Frog Railway is located in Dreamland Park, Coney Island, on a pier running out into the ocean for 500 feet. The track is just long enough to allow the cars to develop a speed of about

As might be expected each car is constructed very solidly to withstand the strain caused by the continual impact, the steel framework alone weighing fourteen tons. Each car is also provided with motors of sixty horse power, which are sufficient to drive the car, which makes the leap, up the incline.

To Trap Automobilists THE zealous sheriffs of suburban towns now have a friend which gives them legal evidence for use against speed

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LEAP FROG RAILWAY AT CONEY ISLAND.

eight miles an hour, and as one is started at one end and a second at the other, they are calculated to meet at the center of the track. As the photograph shows, however, instead of smashing together, one jumps over the other, for each is provided with a little railroad in itself. This is known as an overswitch or super-imposed track. The overswitch is provided with what are called pilot rails, which have an adjustable connection with the railway on which the car moves. They are so arranged that at the moment of collision the wheels of the car which is to mount the other, pass from the main track upon the overswitch and it passes above without even a jar.

ing motorists. This able assistant is in the form of a time-recording camera. The shutters will give an exposure of one one-thousandth of a second. At the same time that a photograph is taken of the flying automobile and its occupants, a picture is made of the face of a watch, thus giving a record of the exact time the photo was made. In the use of this arrangement a trap is measured out and officers placed at each end with these cameras. The photographs of the car and its driver, with indisputable proof of the time in which he made the measured distance, may then be produced in court. as competent evidence against the chauffeur.

Gold Coin and Bullion THE

HE mass of metal by the side of the

pile of coin is a bar of Alaska gold. The pile of coin consists of American $10 gold pieces. Here is an interesting problem for the mathematician to solve: How many of these coins could be made from the gold bar? This problem is not as hard to solve as it seems, for the pile of coins reaches to just one-quarter of

ALASKAN GOLD BRICK.

the height of the bar. Consequently 100 of the $10 pieces would equal its length, and 200 of them would make two piles of the same height. As the thickness of the bar is but a little more than the diameter of the coin, but a small amount of gold would be left over after melting the bar into 200 coins. As a matter of fact the bar weighs just 108 ounces. As an American $10 gold piece weighs 258 grains, a bar of this size is equal to about 201 gold pieces worth a little over $2,000.

Messages to Trains AN ingenious device for delivering

messages to moving trains has been adopted by the Baltimore & Ohio Ry. It consists of a long forked stick, with clips at the ends; a cord loop is hung on these fingers which grasp it so tightly that a gale of wind cannot blow it off, but the trainman may slip it off with ease. To this cord is attached the messages. The stick is held out to the train with the fork pointing in the way the train is going. The trainman simply holds out his arm and allows his hand to come between the forks of the stick and the string. The cord is loosened immediately and he carries it with the message attached away with him on the speeding train.

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To Protect Chauffeurs A NEW speedometer for motorists is

now on the market, which not only gives the rate of speed per hour and the number of minutes to the mile, but can be set at any given speed, so that when that speed is exceeded a buzzer announces the fact to the driver. With this device in use, a chauffeur can set the speedometer at the limit of speed allowed in the country where he is traveling, and, as soon as the limit is exceeded, he will be warned of the fact.

To Measure Tiny Space AN apparatus for measuring the seventy-millionth part of an inch has been made by Dr. P. Shaw, of Nottingham University, England. It works upon the principle of electric touch, and consists of a fine micrometer screw and six levers. The apparatus is so sensitive and delicate that it is impossible to manipulate it before an audience. It is hung by rubber bands, covered with thick felt, and must be worked at dead of night, when there is no traffic or factory working. The smallest distance that this mechanism measures is about the distance between a solid and a liquid molecule. Dr. Shaw's invention was first made in 1900, but its great improvement of late has made it the wonder of physicists throughout the world.

Steel Conveyor Belt

PROBABLY the longest steel conveyor

belt ever made is that shown in the

accompanying cut. It is 97 feet long, 24 inches wide, and one-half inch thick,

arating the two lakes, so that the whole. journey is like a trip up and down an inclined railway. The diminutive train is made up of a little engine-"just the size of two plug hats," it has been described a home-made baggage car, and one of the old Toronto street-cars for a passenger car.

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STEEL BELT-CONVEYOR IN PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTION.

and was made for a mining company of Victor, Colorado, to be used instead of a less durable rubber belt in conveying ore from one point to another. The material used was strands of old flat hoisting rope. The belt is spliced endless, the splice going clear round the belt. In the cut, one portion is shown finished, another part half-finished, while in the remainder the strands are still hanging loose.-E. J. CROCKER.

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Collapsing Fire Escape A NEW YORK inventor has recently patented an ingenious fire escape, which is illustrated herewith. It consists of a hollow tube made of strips of an incombustible material. This collapses when not in use so as to take up very little room, but when in use it will hang from a window like an ordinary rope and will stretch out under the weight of the person using it. The surface is rough enough to allow a good grip and the pressure of the hands on the escape forms a kind of shoulder so that the hands cannot slip. As it is hollow, a circulation

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whale, the latter defends itself by striking its smaller adversary with its flukes,

Concrete Pipe Line

sametimes killing it. Usually however A CONCRETE aqueduct recently

the whale is the victim. The one shown in the illustration died as the result of wounds made by the black fish and floated into shallow water where it was fastened to ropes and pulled upon the beach with horses, to be cut up for the blubber and bone which it contained.

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completed at Cambridge, Mass., affords a remarkable example of the growing tendency to replace iron, brick, clay tile, and other materials of construction in the building of waterways with concrete, and thereby to secure permanency. The new conduit, which is said to be the first of its kind in this country, is 21⁄2 miles long and 6 feet in diameter, and is designed to sustain any pressure. It replaces an old iron pipe line.

In this connection it may be interesting to note that the Syracuse (New York) University contemplates establishing a complete course upon cementing and concrete construction, for which a new building is now being erected, to be devoted exclusively to this branch of instruction.

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