This occurred near Newcomb, N, Y. A runabout struck a deer which tried to cross the road. The impact killed the deer and swerved the machine into a gully, overturning it. The gasoline tank exploded and set fire to the machine, which was demolished. The occupants were thrown out but escaped with slight injuries. HE Christian X, of the Hamburg-American Line, is the steamless wonder. She was the first motor-driven ocean liner to cross the Atlantic, and she came into the port of Philadelphia recently after a successful trip from Hamburg and Bremen. Driven only by powerful motors, with crude oil as fuel, the Christian X, named after the Danish king, showed no funnels and, being absolutely free of all smoke and grime, was literally "clean as a hound's tooth. By utilizing the space usually given over for crew quarters, the vessel offers high-ceilinged, roomy cabins and salons that suggest a first-class hotel. The engines which drive the ship are of the compact internal-combustion model, oc cupying a comparatively small space, and furnish 25,000 horse-power. Their exhaust is discharged through hollow steel masts forty-five feet above the deck. The Christian X was built at Copenhagen, and was christened the Flonia. When the Hamburg-American Line bought her, she was renamed after the Danish monarch as a courtesy to that nation, and as an acknowledgment of Denmark's creative ability displayed in the construction of a new kind of ship. Her length is 384 feet, beam 58 feet, molded depth 30 feet, and displacement 10,550 tons. There are two motors, each developing about 1,250 horse-power at 140 revolutions per minute, which is sufficient to yield a speed of fourteen miles an hour. This speed can be maintained for twenty-four hours by the use of twelve tons of crude oil fuel. The Christian X can carry 1,000 tons of the oil fuel in her double bottom, or enough to keep her on a trip around the world. Her combustion engines can be reversed, in eight seconds, from full speed ahead to full speed astern. The engines are controlled by compressed-air levers. The exhaust gases are first cooled and then discharged through the hollow masts. A small donkey boiler, also using oil fuel, furnishes the ves Old sailormen, who remember the palmy days of the square-rigged wind jammer, were a bit puzzled by the appearance of the liner, which looked strange to them without funnel or other outward evidence of propelling power. Captain Robert Niss, commander of the liner, speaks of his vessel as "my automobile" and insists that she runs as smoothly and is handled quite as easily as any such vehicle. The significance of the Christian X to shipping men is, that she represents a determined effort of builders to depose steam from the position which it has held for a century as a means of propelling ships. In Germany the propelling of barges and river craft by electricity has been in vogue for many years. A certain group of continental marine engineers are concentrating their efforts on concentrating gas-engine motive power in which, virtually, a complete gas generating plant is installed on a vessel. British engineers incline toward the oil engine, a wonderful record having just been made by the Goldmouth, which, with fuel oil, made the trip from Singapore to Rotterdam, a distance of 11,791 miles, in fifty-two days. The engines were not stopped once on the journey, which ranks as one of the longest "non-stop" runs ever made by marine machinery. Christian X. AS SHE APPEARED ON ARRIVING LARGEST RECORDER OF EARTHQUAKES THE 'HE new Mainka seismograph of the New York Academy of Sciences in New York City's great Natural History Museum was shown to the public for the first time on the night of December second. This delicate instrument has the ability to record earthquakes as far away as the Antipodes. It was presented to the Academy a year ago by Emerson McMillan and was installed last May in the big Eskimo Hall at the Museum. It is about three and one-half by five feet in dimensions, and its two pendulums weigh 1,000 pounds each. LITTLE GIANT AMONG THE Russian Government has be come interested in the work of an inventor at Port Clinton, Ohio, who has succeeded in constructing a very small and practical tractor for farm and orchard work. The Russian Agricultural Bureau is endeavoring to get the inventor to send one of his machines to their country so that it can be used by the bureau in demonstrating the advanced methods of farming. This tractor is equipped with a twelve horse-power engine, weighs two tons and has a working speed of about three miles per hour. LARGEST RECORDER OF EARTHQUAKES. It has proved successful in orchard work on account of its lowness. It does not interfere with the branches of the trees. PAPER POULTRY HOUSES FRANK BROWN, a successful poul try keeper of Marblehead, Mass., uses poultry houses made of paper, one of which the photo on the next page shows. Although the tem AN AMERICAN TRACTOR THAT INTERESTS THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. It is especially useful in orchard work because, being low, it does not interfere with the branches of the trees. THIS POULTRY HOUSE AT MARBLEHEAD, MASS.. IS MADE OF PAPER. perature often drops below zero and the winds sweep across the old town with terrific force, the hens seem to be entirely comfortable in these paper houses and lay well the winter through. The houses are much more substantial than one might expect. They have cement floors and are large enough to work in comfortably. Framing material of furring is used and over it poultry netting is stretched as tight as it is possible to get it. Then heavy tarred paper is tacked in place over the netting. The inside of the houses are given a heavy coat of white paint, which makes them light and helps to fill the laps in the paper. The houses are of the shedroof type and are divided into pens, each of which has a long window in front, with an opening above. covered only with burlap in order to provide ventilation. In summer the windows are wholly or partly removed. Each pen is eight feet square, so that the house here illustrat ed, with its four pens, is thirty-two feet long. It is hard to believe that a house this size made of paper and wire can be used continuously and with satisfaction for seven years, yet Mr. Brown is still housing hens in a paper house built seven years ago and it appears to be good for several years more. The paper houses suffer little from storms and ordinary usage, but occasionally an irrepressible small boy will throw a stone through the roof, and it then becomes necessary to apply a patch by slipping a square of paper between the roof and the netting to cover the hole. But repairs of this sort, of course, do not cost a great deal, either in time or material. That is one of the big advantages in building a poultry house out of material so easily replaced. Then, too, the initial cost, as compared with wood, is low. The owner and builder of these remarkable poultry houses is more than satisfied to continue to use paper walls. |