CITY'S MEDICINAL BATHHOUSE HE first municipal medicinal THE baths in America have just been dedicated at Guthrie, Oklahoma, with appropriate ceremonies, including the breaking of a bottle of mineral water over the balcony of the building. The bathhouse idea had its origin in the discovery a few years ago that a йow of artesian water, struck while drilling for oil or gas, and allowed to go to waste for many years, was highly medicinal in its character. This first well was in a city park and several others were put down by the park commission ers, all resulting in the striking of waters of slightly The bathhouse is of reinforced concrete and marble, with a big swimming pool, filled with salt water from one of the mineral wells. The concrete floor of the pool is several feet from the ground, made necessary by the fact that there were springs at that point, but there is no chance of its sagging. GUTHRIE'S BATHS The mineral waters of the city's artesian wells have been gathered for use in a municipal establishment. One of the chief virtues of the new machine is that it can be handled in close quarters among trees and buildings. WRIGHT'S AIRBOAT trolled and can be manipulated in close ORVILLE WRIGHT, noted birdman, quarters among trees and buildings. has recently completed the hydroaeroplane which marks the last efforts accomplished along this line by his brother. He has been working on the new flyer since Wilbur Wright's death and he now pronounces it about perfect. Experiments with the machine are now being conducted upon the Mad River, which is about seven miles from the factory and school at Dayton, Ohio. Wright is highly pleased with this latest flying boat and thinks it is a great improvement over other models, since it is capable of attaining great speed on the surface of the water and can rise gracefully into the air from the water in a distance of less than two hundred feet. Heretofore hydroaeroplanes required long distances of water to skim along upon before being able to rise, but this new Wright machine mounts into the air almost as easily as a duck. It is easily con FOR PLASTER OF PARIS DOCTOR GUILLAUME-LOUIS of Tours, France, has prepared fabrics for surgical bandages and for an apparatus to hold injured limbs in position, with a preparation of acetone such as has been used by aviators to produce even wing tension. In the case of the aeroplane, a solution of cellulose was painted onto the fabric to get an even tension, and the doctor adopted the idea for bandages to do away with splints and plaster of Paris for certain injuries not requiring heavy reinforcement. However, the film will never replace the plaster because it dries too slowly and is not strong enough to support a limb. Its best use is after the regular dressing has been removed from a fractured limb and a slight support is still required. FIRE AT TEN THOUSAND A PILLAR of flame and smoke visible for thirty miles around was caused by the accidental ignition of a gusher near Bakersfield, California. It burned steadily for a couple of weeks with a loss to the company of about ten thousand dollars a day. The method of fighting this oil fire by steam was tried and twenty-six boilers from adjoining plants were brought to the scene, but this was not successful. Finally, chemicals in large quantities were applied and the fire was subdued after a strenuous battle. In approaching the burning well, the fire fighters were constantly sprayed with water from fire hose to keep their clothes from blazing. SANDING SLIPPERY STREETS THE old-fashioned method of spread ing sand on slippery streets is slow and costly, and to save labor and expense a revolving sand spreader has been placed upon the market. The machine works like a rotary snowshovel, and does the work of twelve men. A team and driver will distribute the sand evenly over twelve blocks of average length in an hour. It was recently tried out by the Street Cleaning Department of the city of Milwaukee, and found to be satisfactory. ON ICY MORNINGS THIS WAGON WITH A ROTARY SPREADER SANDS THE STREETS TO PREVENT The famous mule which has been used since the first canal was built for work on the towpaths is about to lose his job. Chicago was the first city to use the machine. It has purchased several, and the Department of Streets has pronounced them very successful. The sand used in the spreader must be dried, but this process is not expensive. DISCARDING THE TOWPATH MULE A MOTOR truck has made the experi ment of towing the canal barges of Schenectady, New York, so successfully that there is a possibility that the day of the mule is past. Three barges were hooked together and a load of fourteen men taken on the truck before the start was made. The machine traveled along the old towpath at a rate of four miles on hour. As the mules which have always done the towing on small canals. proceed very slowly, a great deal of time is lost in using this method of transportation. It is hoped that an economic saving can be made by substituting powerful trucks to do the hauling. Ship canals of today employ electric locomotives for this purpose. LOCATES PIPE LEAKS EAKS in water mains which necessi LE tate the digging of long trenches, often in streets where the traffic is heavy, may now be located by the pulsograph, a device that has been thoroughly tested by the New York City Water Department. The inventor also claims that the machine will save thousands of gallons of waste water each year through location of the leaks, which often flow for a con siderable time before being discovered. A detachable pump is fastened to a hydrant and an overpressure is produced which travels along the pipe being tested. The pressure is registered on the machine and at any point where it is reduced by even a very small leak the machine shows it. To locate the leak, a wave of pressure is used, it having been previously determined at what rate of speed the wave will travel along a pipe. The pressure is increased and then reduced at regular intervals and the pulsograph registers these changes. Hence, knowing the speed of the wave, it is easy to tell at what distance from the hydrant there is a leak, or a reduction in the overpressure. PHANT'S ROYALTY By WARREN H. MILLER "Any animal with four tusks and a trunk [the elephant was not always twotusked] ought to show forerunners something like it in the next earlier geological period, or else the whole theory of evolution is wrong." Dr. Henry F. Osborne of the American Museum of Natural History has found this connecting link by running down the origin of the great beast in the Desert of Sahara. Any king might well envy the elephant his distinguished pedigree.-Editor's Note. S CIENTIFIC exploration and excavation have brought to light the fact that the elephant, which had his greatest development in America as the mastodon and mammoth, originated on the site of the present desert of Sahara. Doctor Henry Fairfield Osborne, of the American Museum of Natural History, had made a careful study of the ancestry of this species, but up to a few years ago, he, like the other geologists of the world, was at sea as to whence it came. The elephant is a highly specialized beast, being provided with unique equipment for gaining his food, and for defending himself from attack; also having an unusual bony structure to anchor its mighty muscles and sus tain its enormous weight. And in this immense creature, the strongest of all quadrupeds and the most dangerous of all big game, resides a brain acknowledged as the most sagacious in all the animal kingdom. Such a beast must have come a long way in the scale of evolution. Back of the mammoth and the mastodon was the Miocene elephant, so-called because of the geological period in which he appeared. This animal was about the size of our own elephant, but with four tusks, the upper and lower pairs being designed to seize and pull down the branches and canes on which he fed, while the trunk was very short "INTO THE SOFT The exploration party in camp for the night. "At Cairo an Arab Sheik with his caravan of camels was engaged. overhung with tall sigillaria |