Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/761

 Popular Science Monthly

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��How a Tiny Screw Held Up a Great City's Business

A DIMINUTIVE screw worked loose in one of the big steel safes in the treasury de[)artnient of Cinciiniati re- cently, and drojiped into the mechanism operating the combination. Thereafter there was trouble. The screw took its tumble on a Thursday night and it was not until the following Tuesday that thesafe was opened. On Friday morning, when five hundred people were standing in line waiting for §25,000 in pay en- \'elopes reposing behind sixteen inches of steel, the paymaster discovered that something was wrong. He asked the people to wait until he found a Jimmy Valentine.

After several men who admitted that they knew uncanny things about opening safes were tested out, the big .safe was just as obdurate as ever, and the line of watchful waiting ones was dismissed.

Frida}- night the safe was ordered drilled open. A crew of four men worked from that time until Tuesday morning before they undid the mischief caused by that one little screw when it dropped out of its allotted place. The additional work cost the city S75, besides the patience of fi\e hundred citizens.

����A screw fell into the combination of the safe and held up the Cincinnati treasury five days, defying skilled safe-openers

��Thestudbut- tons clamped in place through the ear of the animal to be ident i f ied

Detail of a simple type of clamp but- ton showing the two parts separ at ed

��Branding Animals with a Clamp- Button Monogram

MARKING of animals for the purpose of identification has long been accomplished by means of the branding iron. The branding of stable stock, howe\"er, means a marred coat. .A new method of marking with metal buttons offers several advantages. The buttons are clamped through the ear l)y nK'ans of a c>lindcr and split shank.

.Animal stealing would be rendered unprofitable, for the removal of a button, or its defacement, would be extremely (iifficult. The detail drawing shows a simiJJe tN'pe and design of clamp-button. The stud I has a short c\lin(ler-slee\e // into which the split shank 6' of stud 2 passes — the long enfl of the shank [jrojecting through cylinder-end O is spread outwardly by pincer pressure, the spread ends fitting neatly into the depression D in the surface of stud 1 thus clamping on the stud buttons.

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