Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/397

 Popular Science Monthly

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��A Convenient Step for Automobiles

THE running board of an automobile is not an easy step for many people, especially women and children. To make the boarding of the car easier a folding step has been put upon the market by an Indiana inventor.

The step is mounted under the run- ning board and is operated by com- pressed air. The driver of the car simply presses upon a pedal when the step is required, and it lowers itself. W^hen folded into place it is entirely out of sight and is so constructed that there is no rattling. It adds but small weight to the car.

A similar step has also been perfected by the inventor for railway trains. \\'hen opening the vestibule door of a car at a station, the porter simply pulls a lever and the step drops into place. This saves the handling of the wooden step usually carried on Pullman cars.

Pull Yourself out of the Mud

THAT perpetual horror to the motor- ist of sliding down a bank into a ditch at such an angle that he cannot get out under his own power is banished to a fairly comfortable distance by a com- pact block and tackle arrangement so easily operated that it can be used with- out danger of soiling the clothes. The apparatus consists of a hand crank, pul-

����Turning the crank exerts stvenly times as much power

as the force apphed, so that the car is easily dragged

out of the ditch or up an embankment

��An automatic step lowered by pressure on a pedal. By its aid a small child may board the car with no great difficulty

leys, steel cable and chain. One of the chains is fastened to the three stakes driven in the ground. The other chain is attached to the framework of the auto- mobile. The pulleys and wire cable are in the middle. Turning the crank exerts a leverage of great power — actually seventy times as great as the force ap- plied — so that little difficulty is experi- enced in dragging even a large motor out of a deep rut or ditch back into the road- way.

An Owl Darkens the Town

ON a recent evening a large horned owl jjlunged the town of Van I>uren. Ark., into darkness when it alighted upon a steel tower and caused a short circuit of the main feed wire which supplied the town with electricity. The bird, which measured five feet across the wings, was killed by a current strong enough to kill a horse. The lighting company secured the body of the dead bird, and put it on exhibition.

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