TH DRY THEM ELECTRICALLY HE electric hand dryer is the last word in sanitary devices for public buildings, and promises to relegate the paper towel to the junk heap the roller towel now occupies. The machine is the invention of J. M. Ward, superintendent of the Municipal Building, Washington. One has just been installed, and it has proven such a success that a score of others are being manufactured. They will be placed throughout the building. The electric hand dryer is contained in a large box. There is an opening at the top over which wet hands are held. By pushing down a foot lever, the machine is put in operation and a strong current of warm air comes through the opening. The air is driven through the opening by a powerful electric blower, first passing over two miniature electric furnaces which warm it to a temperature which does not chill the hands. AIR CASTLE VISUALIZED IN GLASS GLASS AIR CASTLE THERE is none of the glamor of Spain connected with the air castle shown herewith. It is the product of the hand of an Oklahoma glass worker and represents three hundred and fifty hours of work. It is forty inches in height and fifty inches in circumference, and contains ten thousand glass tubes ranging from one-half inch up to nine and one-half inches in length. The castle is built upon silvered braces and is decorated with baby ribbon and small bells. It is capped with a double star and hangs by a silvered cord. It has been the Germans who have carried on this sort of work, not Americans. The tank is asbestos lined, as the oil is kept at a temperature of from four hundred to five hundred degrees and no less than two inches of asbestos lining is required. The oil is sprayed upon the road surface, entering every crevice and forming a durable and evenly wearing binder, the pressure being kept at sixty pounds to the square inch in the tank. This drives the oil through the spreader teeth as a fine spray. By an ingenious use of the heat from the exhaust, the teeth are kept at a high temperature to prevent clogging. The pressure of the air compressor may be regulated either by the driver or by an operator on the rear of the truck, and indicators are placed at both ends of the vehicle to register it. As a test of the machine, it was arranged to place sufficient oil in the tank to spread three-fourths of a gallon of oil per square yard over half a mile of road. The accuracy of the device is shown by the fact that it came within .twenty feet of the finish, on the estimated amount of oil. This truck has covered seven thousand miles, spreading about one hundred and twenty-five thousand gallons of oil and has proven so effective that further trucks of similar construction are to be bought. NEW GLOVES FOR X-RAY SILK gloves "sized" with lead are be ing manufactured for the protection of X-ray operators. In the past, the gloves which have been employed have been heavily plated on the backs with lead, but they were unwieldy and failed to protect the palms of the hands. The new fabric is a French product and has been thoroughly tested for arresting the rays which so often seriously injure the operators. It is found that all parts of the hands are protected by them and that they are flexible and much easier to use than the old form of glove. Medical science had lost several men before the dangers of these terrible rays were fully understood. The pioneers did not suspect that the rays from those particular tubes were any more dangerous than those from any ordinary incandescent lamp, and exposed themselves freely. But now the expert hides behind lead. MACHINES. THEY WILL DELIVER AN ACCURATE QUANTITY OF OIL PER YARD THE NEW BOOTH Voting is being brought down to a science in France. A large number of men are handled by this new arrangement and there is almost no chance for fraud. SIXTY VOTES A MINUTE POLLING booths in France have been revolutionized by a recent invention which has been adopted, enabling sixty men to cast their votes simultaneously. As the men come in they are handed ballots, and go into the separate booths which line the center of the room. After recording their votes they pass on through the room and deposit the ballots in the box for that purpose placed at the exit door. Each booth is partitioned off so that the marking is done in absolute secrecy and the stream of incoming voters does not meet the outgoing stream. A large number of men can thus be handled during a short time. The ballot box is covered with wire netting so that it is semi-transparent and fraud is almost impossible. In America the voting is rarely hurried and the wards are divided into such small units that such an arrangement has not been found necessary. "MILL OF JOY" Patrons of this attraction at a Paris amusement park go up in an elevator and toboggan down. All he does is to steer. It is as much fun as watering the garden or sprinkling the lawn. WITH MOUNTAIN FLUSHING STREETS WITH STREAMS NE of the most effective tain more than a thousand feet above and economical methods the street levels. At this height, the ever employed in street pressure of the water under gravity is cleaning is that in use at so great that, when it reaches the Baker City, Oregon-a city, it will easily throw a stream from town with a population of ten thousand, an ordinary fire hose a distance of one and an unusually large percentage of hundred feet or more, thus making the paved streets. use of fire engines quite unnecessary during a conflagration. The source of the city's water supply is a huge reservoir, fed by mountain streams, located on the top of a moun With fire plugs on every block, it occurred to one of the city officials that The man at the nozzle end can handle it as he will, and the hose travels around with him. |