Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/352

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��Popular Science Monthly

��Tlio inoiiar arnianicnt cars should be located at stations alonj^ the coast, wlicrc, upon an lioiir's notice, several of tbeni could be moved into position for action.

It is estimated that to cover tbis sbore line would require in the neigbl)orbood of fifty mortars and len rifle armament cars. Tbis would mean that tbere would be one bundred and ten j^uns on moljile car e(|uipment wilb total outlay (esti- mating- the car and guns to cost one bun- dred and fifty tbousand dollars) about nine million dollars.

Al)])ro.\imately twenty to twenty-five men would be required per car. Tbus, for tbe cost of one modern Itattlesbip, we

���This hen stops at a hotel. Lady Eglantine, the prize egg-layer of history, is worth anything you please because she transmits her admirable proclivities to her progeny

could e(|nip lliese sbores witb new mo- bile armament containing one bundred and ten guns, wbicb c(nild be more accu- rately fired and wbicb would be strateg- ically more effective, witb little risk of losing a single battery.

Tbis is not the first time that railway forts bave been proposed. Tbe idea is at least twenty-five years old. Tbe fa- mous Crcusot works of I'rance al)ont tbree years ago actually built ;i railway battery. I low successful it was we do

��not know. I\Ir. Luellen has made a dis- tinct contribution in suggesting concrete emplacements.

Lady Eglantine: The One-Hundred- Thousand-Dollar Hen

A HEN whose value ranges all the way from $1,000, to a prince's ran- som (whatever that may be), because money cannot buy her, recently attracted tbe crowds that frequented the poultry show held at the (jrand Central Palace.

There was nothing about this clucking heroine to distinguish her from other white leghorns, and she is as modest in her fame as world's title holder as if she had not laid one of the three hun- dred and fourteen eggs that she deposit- ed to her credit in tbree hundred and sixty-five days. Furthermore, she was l)right and lively and exhibited none of tbe temperament that one reasonably l(joks for in any great artiste.

In the first place, and. so that your understanding of this item of the day's news may be well based, the bird was batched at (ireensboro, Md., April 15, 1914, on the Eglantine Farms, run by A. A. Christian. She was one of five single- comb white leghorns placed in a pen at the egg-laying competition on the grounds of the Delaware Agricultural Experiment Station at Newark, Dela- ware, from November 1, 1914, to Octo- l)er 31, 1915. In tbis time she made her record. She is black-eyed, fourteen inches high and weighs four pounds. She has a perfect figure.

Mr. Christian was offered a great deal of money for Lady Eglantine but he will not sell her. No price, he says, will tempt him. When Mr. Christian's atti- tude on this became known somebody said the bird was worth $100,000, where- upon she was called the "$100,000 hen." lUit she might just as well be called a ."ftl. 000,000 hen, for nobody can estimate her value.

THERE was a large decline in the in- dustry of mining precious and semi-precious stones in the United vStates durinsr 1914.

��The April Popular Science Monthly will be on sale Wednesday, March fifteenth (West of the Rockies, Tuesday, March twenty-first).

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