Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/120

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��Popular Science Monthly

��A Watch-Like Coin-Case

���A novel coin-holder winch is made to be carried like an ordinary watch

THE market offers so many coin- cases, embodying every kind of advantage, that it seems impossible to make any improvements. For all that

��a new one has been invented, which has the shape of a watch so that it may be carried on a chain. It holds eight coins of the same de- nomination. A central disk, its periphery cut to form eight ratchet- teeth, rotates about a short shaft secured in the watch-like casing. A spring is fastened at one end to the shaft aljout which it is wound, and at the other end to a pin in the disk. The disk has eight radial flanges. Four flanges project from one side of the disk and four from the opposite side, alternately.

The casing has two lateral, bulging parts to accommodate two pawls which operate the disk. Each pawl consists of two fingers projecting in opposite direc- tions from a central shaft. The one is held against the ratchet-tooth by a tiny spring, and the other acts as a stop to the adjacent tooth. The shorter one has a finger-button which projects through a slot in the case. On the under side of the outer case is a wide slot for receiving and discharging coins. The coins are alternately inserted one at a time at opposite sides of the disk, this action automatically winding the .spring.

��Mosquitoes on Snow Banks

IN both the Rocky Mountains and Alaska the geologists and engineers of the United States Geological Surve\' have as part of their regular eciuii)ment mosquito-nets for their heads. Even when working in deep snow, head nets and gauntlets are necessary to protect the field men from the blood-thirstiness of the pests. The mosciuito does not vanish with inc-rcasing altitude. At eleven thousand feet, or timberline, he is as pnjlific as at sea-level, and smoke, no matter how dense and [)Uiigent it may be, will not eradicate him. The onl>' sure relief lies in the net. In some sec- tions of Colorado the mountain natives let mosquitoes bite them until their systems become thoroughly inoculated with their poisf)n. After this they arc bothered no more. The first advice

��given to the "tenderfoot" b\' the old- timer is, "Let 'em bite; they won't keep it up long."

���Fi^Iiling mosquitoes is a man's job and the mosqiiito-nct is the most effective weapon

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