Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/448

420

REAL labor-saver for the house-keeper is a wheeled service-wagon. A helpful new one has two oblong trays with raised rims to prevent dishes from sliding off. The upper one is approximately table height, the lower forms a supplementary shelf beneath. In one trip, breakfast or luncheon for the family can be taken to the dining-room.

The wagon is mounted upon two large rubber-tired wheels with two small nickel-plated ones in the rear. Placed beside the wife at the dining table, it can be used without rising to exchange the soiled dishes of the first course for the fresh food of the second. After the meal the soiled dishes are wheeled in one trip to the kitchen. Rolled close to the sink, the wagon receives the clean dishes as dried and returns them to the china-closet. When not in use it folds up compactly and can be stored in a closet or pantry. It is equally serviceable to receive clean ironed clothes and to distribute them over the house, or to serve as a sewing and mending table.

N order that the air brought into a room for ventilating purposes shall be as free as possible from dust, a filtering box has been developed, which, attached to the window frame, allows only cleansed air to enter. The box projects some distance beyond the outside wall, so that the air currents will be sufficiently strong to force their way through the layers of filtering material, into the room.

Sheet metal walls are arranged in the box in a zig-zag fashion, half of them attached to the top and half to the bottom; the air must pass repeatedly up and down. The walls are perforated at their outer edges. A strip of cloth is passed between the projecting edges of the plates. Because of the staggered arrangement of the plates, this ventilator acts in the incidental capacity of a sound muffler. When in position it occupies a very small space; and the amount of air admitted can be controlled by a small sliding shutter.

F the two hundred and four cities in the United States of over thirty thousand inhabitants, one hundred and fifty-five have municipally owned water-supply systems, the total value of which is one billion, seventy-one million dollars.  '''If you want further information about the subjects which are taken up in the Popular Science Monthly, write to our Readers' Service Department. We will gladly furnish free of charge, names of manufacturers of devices described and illustrated.'''