Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/138

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Most important to the shopkeeper is the use of the electric fan in show win- dows to keep the frost off the glass. Un- less some special arrangement is made to secure excellent ventilation of the show window, it will become so heavily coated with frost on cold days that the exhibits cannot be seen from the street. A fan in the window, how- ever, will keep the air circulated so that the moist-

���Clearing a show window

��ure that tends to gather upon the window will be evaporated.

The fan is very useful in aiding the heating system in the home, especially where a hot air system is employed. Every one who has ever tended one of these furnaces knows that it is fre- quently impossible to make the hot air rise through certain pipes when the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. A fan placed direct- 1 ■■-;-■■ - :^ ly in front of the register will draw the hot air through the pipes and heat the room very quickly. The writer knows of a number of cases where the cold air intake pipe is so arranged that a fan may be placed inside, thus increas- ing the circulation of the furnace. Who has not gone to his furnace to find it cheerless and depressed with hardly a spark visible? In such cases the most drastic arrangement of drafts will fail to save the fire, but if there if any life left in the fire pot whatever, a fan placed in front of the lower door will soon have the coal blazing merrily.

\\'hen the kitchen is filled with smoke from an unruly range an electric fan placed in the window will quickly clear the atmosphere without drawing in a large volume of cold air.

Many women use a fan to dry their hair after a shampoo by placing it upon a radiator and sitting in the draught.

���Helping heat a room

��Popular Science Monthly

Electric Toaster Eliminates Burnt Fingers

TO those who have frequently burned their fingers while turning over the toast on their electric toaster, the new toaster recently added to the elec- tric devices now on the market will prove an interesting improvement.

By turning the knob near the bottom, the frame holding the slice of bread to the heater coil is thrown outward, while wire catches at the bottom trip the toast so that it slides along the frame, browned side down. On turning the knob back

���The new electric toaster and sketches

showing how it turns the toast without

picking up with the fingers

again, the toast is raised to a vertical position with the fresh side toward the heater. By this ingenious arrangement it is not necessary to touch the toast with the fingers until it is ready for buttering.

Don't Decarbonize Aluminum Pistons

OWNERS and drivers of automobiles in which the pistons are of alumi- num alloy, should be very careful in us- ing "decarbonization" methods. Unless all experiments are wrong, it is bad pol- icy to use the oxygen-acetylene flame for this purpose. Aluminum oxydizes much more rapidly than iron, under the infliv ence of oxygen, and in the extreme heat of the oxy-acetylene flame still more rapid oxidation is probable. Until exact tests show that the oxidation is not fast enough to worry the motorists, the lat- ter should steer the safe course and use some other method.

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