BORROWING FROM THE AUTO The new steering wheel is said to add greatly to the comfort of bicycle riding.

X-RAY FINDS FLAWS IN STEEL

DR.

R. WHEELER P. DAVEY, experimenting in the laboratories of the General Electric Company, has demonstrated that not only can flaws in a piece of steel be shown by means of the X-ray, but that the inspection of steel by this means is a commercial possibility. Practical working out of the problem, so that steel makers may know just where an ingot must be cut in order to include no flaws, is still a matter for the experimenters, but the trail has now been blazed.

The experiment which Dr. Davey completed was a commercial one in which he examined, with the X-ray, a casting which was suspected of being defective.. Radiographs were taken in the usual way

with a Coolidge tube and an X-ray plate. backed by a lead plate. The resulting pictures showed peculiar markings which pointed to the probability of a cavity within the casting. To complete the experiment, a small button was punched from the steel at the suspected spot and examined. Running through it was found a hole which impaired the structural strength of the casting, thus completely confirming the diagnosis. There were no signs of this cavity on the surface of the button which was examined.

The method used is probably applicable only to castings, as the imperfections. in rolled steel, such as railroad rails, are made visible only after the steel has been in use. Inspected rails would show no faults under the X-ray until they had been pounded by heavy locomotives, and crystallization had proceeded so far that the rail was extremely dangerous.

UBURBAN and interurban trolley traffic has reached such proportions in Great Britain, Germany, and Austria, that steam and gasoline motor cars have been coming into extensive use on steam railways, to meet this competition. The steam railway autocar is the favorite device, and is said to have been very efficient and particularly suitable for branch lines or railways where the passenger traffic is not heavy. The compact boiler is set up in the driver's compartment, and is so designed that it needs no attention save an occasional stoking.

B

OISE is a thorn of a peculiar sort in the side of manufacturers who make heating apparatus. In Boise, artesian wells yield a flood of hot water; and with water already heated by Mother Earth surging through radiators in homes and office buildings, there is no use for a household furnace. Hence, certain furnace makers and particularly the coal man-have a deep-seated grudge against the town.

This sounds like fiction, but it isn't. It's fact. Not cold fact, but boiling, bubbling fact. Boise has a number of artesian wells which furnish thermal waters in abundance for the populace; and engineers have turned the product of Nature to good account. These wells have been made to supply hot water to heat office buildings and residences, and for a multitude of purposes.

The artesian wells which supply the fine, big natatorium yield 1,300,000 gallons of water every twenty-four hours. This liberal supply is used, in addition. to furnishing the water for the baths and swimming tanks, to heat the building itself.

The streets of the city are also sprinkled with hot water from the wells. Hence, the small boy follows a hard existence; for if the heat cast on the pavement by the summer sun does not scorch his bare feet, the steaming liquid from the water wagon will. This procedure probably has little that is of unique value; but it serves to show how cheaply Boise regards hot water.

Cranking a cold auto engine is recreation for the Boise driver. All he has to do is to fill the radiator with hot water furnished by Nature. This warms up the mechanism and the motor is off.

They sell artificial ice in Boise. One's first reaction on hearing this is to say, "What a deuce of a time the manufacturers must have getting boiling water to cool down to a freezing point in the brine tanks!" But, of course, the town has cold water, for Nature knows that plant life doesn't relish hot water any more than a thirsty man does on the Fourth of July. And Boise is just as proud of the quality and coolness of its drinking water as it is of the usefulness of its hot water supply.

The natatorium wells are four hundred feet deep and yield water at a temperature of 172 degrees Fahrenheit. Incidentally, perhaps no other city in the world has a natatorium just like this one. The building, built in a Moorish style of architecture, is picturesque, and contains a plunge one hundred and twenty feet in length by seventy feet in width. The depth varies from two to sixteen feet, and cramps from cold never annoy bathers in this ideal indoor pool. The bottom of the plunge is lighted by ten submarine electric lights of about three thousand candle-power, so that it is always possible to see anything beneath the

surface. In case of accident to a bather this fact would be invaluable for rescue work.

The artesian wells are located but a short distance outside the city. A modest little plant is required to get the bubbling fluid from the bowels of the earth to the surface, but then it may be piped and distributed as desired. The wells are located at the foot of a range of hills, and in the immediate vicinity-smack up against the water plant, one might saylie rich truck gardens and bountiful orchards bearing juicy fruits, all benefited in some way by one or another of the unique water supply methods so characteristic of the city of Boise and of its environs.

Water does a lot for Boise, just as it makes the desert blossom; but it does more than make things grow. The city gets current generated for electric light and power from a dam and power house of concrete on the Snake River, and it has hot and cold water piped to the houses for the multitude of household purposes it serves. Verily, Boise is the place to go to climb aboard the water wagon!

F

IFTEEN years ago a man by the name of Riker owned two and a half acres of land-mud, to be accurate-out in the East River, near New York City. When it was very low tide he had more than two and a half acres. When it was very high tide he didn't have any land to speak of, only a small black knob sticking out of the water.

He wasn't at all proud of his property. He was disgusted at having to part with even the exceedingly small taxes he paid on it. And when at last someone wanted to buy it, his only fear was that the prospective purchaser might die before the papers could be transferred. Finally, Riker sold his island to the city, and not long after, he saw a number of scows dumping ashes on his forlorn and late possession, and he thought the city had

bought his little mud-flat merely as a dumping ground.

All that year the scows made regular trips up the river and dumped their burden on the small strip of land, which began to show signs of expanding. A few years later, Riker happened to be down by the river-front and he looked out across the water to see how his mud-flat was getting along.

To his surprise, the mud-flat had disappeared. In place of it he saw a wide, jetty-banked island graced with large bulk-headed docks, where a dozen scows were busily unloading their cargoes, with the help of two steam cranes. On the farther side of the island Riker saw a couple of powerful dredging-engines widening the channel near the island and building up the river bank.

Riker shook his head thoughtfully, and strolled away with a horrible doubt