Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/396

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��Popular Science Monthly

���Revolving fan blades beneath the hopper of this sand truck throw the sand over many feet of street surface which has been freshly oiled

��Spreading Sand over Oiled Roads by a Motor Truck Attachment

IT is the custom in some cities to sprinkle sand over freshly-oiled streets to prevent oil from adhering to vehicle wheels or from being tracked upon sidewalks by pedestrians.

To accomplish this work more rapidly, Mr. Charles H. Rust, City Engineer of Victoria, B. C, attaches a wooden hopper to the back of a motor truck. At the bottom of the hopper is placed a small door to allow sand to run out of the hopper at any desired rate. Just below this door is a revolving disk with wrought iron vanes or ridges riveted to its upper surface. The disk is driven through bevel gears and a chain and sprockets from the rear axle of the truck.

Shovelers within the body of the truck keep the hopper filled with sand, and as it runs out upon the whirling disk, the vanes throw it out over a space ten feet wide.

The disk is thirty inches in diameter and revolves at a rate of two hundred and eighty-five revolutions a minute. The truck travels at a speed of three miles per hour.

��Nine Thousand German Aeroplanes

ONE of the most closely guarded se- crets in the military establishments of Europe at the present time is the strength of the flying corps. That Ger- many at present has at least nine thou- sand war aeroplanes in active use, is the statement attributed to one of the higher officers last month. This officer, when the military attache of one of the South American nations commented on the plans of the British government to build ten thousand aeroplanes, remarked casually, "We have more than nine thou- sand ourselves!" In this connection it is also reported that along the Russian front, only an exceedingly thin line of infantry holds the trenches, and that nearly two thousand aeroplanes are cruising above the battle lines in the East, notifying the German headquar- ters in ample time, of any movements along the Russian front. The crying need of the Russian armies now is flying machines, of which they need at least two thousand to be able to cover their own movements of troops. The greater the number of machines an army pos- sesses, the fewer are lost. Hence the demand for a large corps.

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