Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/297

 Popular Science Monthly

��269

��If You Only Have a Rope

SUPPOSE you are caught like a rat in a trap in a house on fire. Your only means of escape may be a dead wire, a loose rope, or sheets and blan- kets tied together to make a rope.

Would you know how to slide down the rope or wire like a fireman or sailor? You will very likely say, as sixty odd univer- s i t y students re- plied when asked that question : "Ah, that is easy. Any- body can slide down a rope.''

But can they ? Boys are usually as agile as monkeys, and more likely in an emergency to be able to rescue themselves than others, yet a recent test of boy scouts with a rope lower- ed from the first story of a suppos- edly burning build- only two or three knew how to use a pole, a wire, twisted sheets or a rope in order to reach the ground safely.

Sliding down a rope, like many other things, is simple enough — if you know how!

If you lower yourself by letting the rope or wire slide and slip through your hands or touch any part of the uncov- ered flesh, the motion and friction will sting and tear your skin beyond endur- ance. This will cause you to let go and may produce serious results.

By holding on with your hands and letting your weight go down, one hand over the other, you will not go far be- fore you are too tired to support your own body. Disaster will be the price, because you will drop like a shot. Nor can you slide with the rope between your legs, because the swaying will make the rope slip or will jerk it from its clutch. There is a right way, which secures to you almost the safely of walking on

���The correct way to slide down a rope

ing, proved that

��solid ground. You stand upright and put out your leg, say the right, and give it a turn around the rope. Next put the rope into the crook of xour elbow and there hold it firmly.

Your hands and skin do not now touch the rough rope at any spot. You may slip down slowly or rapidly, but under complete control by bending or stifi^ening the body, to the security below. \'our garments act as a shield to your flesh, and you have a fire-escape and rope-lad- der fit for safety, stratagems or ad\en- tures.

A Bunsen Burner Flat Iron

AN Illinois man- . ufacturer has placed on the mar- ket a novel gas flat- iron which employs the principle of the Bunsen burner to keep it at an even temperature and to eliminate any out- side heating. Essentially, it consists of a hollow flat-iron, in the back of which is inserted a modified form of the simple and inexpensive burner. By its means the gas flame is directed down towards the point of the iron ; and the intensity of the heat may be very easily regulated by the amount of air admitted to the tube attached to the back of the iron.

���A

��A Hair-Drying Comb

COMB with

���a hollow back for receiv- ing a hot iron is the essential idea contained in the illustration. The comb is the ex- ception that the back is hollow. A handle with a heating iron is pro\'ided as a part of the device. When it is do- sired to use the comb for drying the hair, the iron is heated in a gas flame and inserted into the back of the comb. Gradually the heat is conducted to the teeth, which are made of steel. Strok- ing the hair with the warm comb readiK' dries it, and, the inventor claims, leaves it in a lustrous, soft condition.

�� �