Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/558

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��Popular Science Monthly

��Road- Construction Facts by the Wayside

���A bulletin board placed beside a stretch of road which is being built or repaired gives the passer- by the method of construction and the reasons why it was adopted. The bulletin also tells the tax- payer what he is paying for

��GOOD roads enter so largely into the affairs of the average man in this age of the automobile that a pop- ular step was taken when road-construction facts were given to the public in a new and striking manner. The bulletin board illustra- ted is in use in and about Philadelphia, where the Chief of the Bureau of Highways, William H. Connell, is telling the taxpayer just what he is pa>'ing for in roads.

The bulletin tells all the details of materials and construction in non-technical language. The foundation course is described, as is the surface course, and the surface finish. Then the method of mixing the materials for the surface course is de- scribed, and the ma- terials are enumerated.

��"Troubleshooting" at Night with the Aid of a Searchlight

THE " troubleshoolers " of the Far West — the linemen who brave the fiercest weather to keep the telephone line open at all times — have already been immortalized in story. It is now the turn of the "troubleshooter" of the big Eastern cities to get his name into the latest fiction as a hero in disguise.

Keeping telephone lines repaired is one of the most difficult of jobs. There is not a day but the superintendent of con- struction in every big telephone company sends out his corps of linemen.

In Pennsylvania the largest telephone company has a "troubleshootcr's" equipment which is the last word in efficiency. A big motor-truck enables the men to get to the particular scene of trouble in a minimum of time. When the call comes in the dead of night the truck aids the linemen with its searchlight which is thrown directly upon the spot. With its aid he does the work easily.

���The teicpiioiif li of a searchlight

��111 111. in iiuiUiu^ ,1 iiuu 1. u p.ni under the beam which is mounted on an emergency truck

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