Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/193

 Popular Scievce MonihJy

���Signal detachment, with flags and telephones, fording a river to lay a line of communications

Throwing a Line of Communications Across a River

WHEN an army invades a country- the most important thing after digging itself into the ground is to establish a line of communications. This duty devolves upon the signal corps. In the photograph reproduced above a detachment of our signal corps is shown advancing across a river with signal flags and a portable field-telephone equip- ment. By means of the flags they wig- wag their position to the forces in the rear which arc protecting them. When the telephone line is completed it affords communication between the first-line troops and the ones behind, and between the commander and the heads of sepa- rate di\isions.

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vertically in a scaffolding, and almost on a level with the upper end of it is a plat- form upon which the driller stands. The task of the latter is to run a perfectly straight hole three-eighths of an inch in diameter through the whole length t the log.

As the hole deepens, longer handles are attached to the chisel blade, the last being as long as the log itself. The driller is invariably an old man, with years of expe- rience behind him as a drill- er's apprentice. Consider- ing his long training the ac- curacy of his work is remarkable. Only after the hole is completed, tested, and found true, is the less careful but still laborious work of shaping down the out- side of the log taken up. This is done first .with axes, then with the parang or native knife, and finally by .scraping.

The dart of the Dyak blow-pipe is of some light wood — pith is sometimes u.sed for short range work — and the tip is of bone, or steel. Where the latter is obtainable small birds can be brought down h\ the dart alone.

��Blow-Pipes of the Borneo Land Dyaks ALTHOUGH one of the simplest of 1\. weapons the blow-pipe used b>' the Land Dyaks of Sarawak, North Borneo, requires more skill in the making than any other instrument or implement of a primitixc people.

No thin sapling sufficiently- straight or strong for a blowpipe is to be found in the forests of Bcjrneo, so the laborious method of working down a large piece of wood has to be resorted to. The wood most fa^'o^ed is called yong by the natives. It is hea\-icr than water and of verA' tough texture, but it is fairly easih- worked, e\-en after a couple of years' seasoning. The yo7ig log is rigged up

���The Dyak blow-pipe requires infinite skill in working it down from a log

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