Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/374

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��Popular Science Mouthh/

��When the Horse Tops It Over the Automobile

���made for the control of the brakes and speeds in the stirrups. The novel con- trivance is not intended for every-day use, however, but merely to make of its owner a spotlight fa\orite in a parade or other dress feature.

��The Legs of the Wooden Horse Are Sawed Off and the Rod of Steer- ing Wheel Run up Through Its Chest

��LIVES there a man with soul so dead J who never to himself hath said, "What a hero I look on horseback?" Yet the automobile has its fascinations as well as its uses, and in the matter of speed and endurance it passed the horse at the first flag post. A Boston man, however, has evolved an idea for mount- ing a wooden horse on an automobile and getting the picturesque effect and the little tickling of his vanity without sacrificing the speed of his getting about.

The horse is a discarded har- ness model which was pur- chased for the purpose. The legs were sawed otT, and the body of the horse was fastened securely to the bod y <il the automo- bile. The rod of the steering- wheel was run up through I he chesl of 1 li (■

hor.se, and ar- t,,^. WurkuK-n Run

rangement was and Slide Gently to

��Shooting the Chutes to Safety in an Explosion

MKTAL chutes to catch the workmen and volplane them gently to the ground is the latest device for giving protection or facilitating escape in case of explosion. At the DuPontPowderCompany's plant at Carney's Point, Maryland, there is a one- story building two hundred feet long that is constructed in sections, each being sep- arated from those on either side by thick brick dividing walls. Should the powder "blow" in one of the sections the workmen in that par- ticular section beat a hasty retreat to a near-by steel fence, behind which they wait.

The fire escapes are nothing more than metal chutes. If something goes wrong on the second floor and it is necessary for the workmen to get out of the building with all swiftness, they simply run for the windows, leap into the chutes, and are shot to the ground with such rapidity that others can fall in line directly liehind them and never hit them.

���lor the Wiiuiows, Leap Into the Chutes the Ground in the Fraction of a Minute

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