Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/700

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��Popular Science Monthly

���rises and does not permit rotation. The present apparatus can rise to a height of sixteen hundred feet. Its length is twenty feet, its weight about fifty-five pounds, and the pictures are seven and one-quarter inches square. Its parts are shown on the preceding page. The guide-staff about fifteen feet long is made in two united but easily sepa-

��rable parts, the upper being bolted to the rocket, the lower carrying the vanes, as shown.

When ready for use the rocket is mounted on a collapsible, heavy frame carrying the sighting device and weigh- ing about eight hundred and eighty pounds. The rocket is ignited by a distant electric device. The weight im- mediately runs down and the charge is fired, driving the rocket up one thousand, six hundred feet in eight seconds. When near the highest point of ascent the contact in the top of the hood opens the instantaneous shutter and releases the parachute. As the parachute opens, the rocket divides into two parts, connected by a thirty-two-foot belt. The hood and camera hang just under the parachute, while the container and staff swing about thirty-two feet below. The parachute, relieved of extra weight, lands the camera without jar in sixty seconds.

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