Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/283

 Popular Science Monthly

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��The City Alligator. He Cleans the Sewers of Fort Meade, Florida

THE alligator has gradu- ated into the useful class. At last his sluggish energy has been usefully directed.

Recently a six-hundred- foot, twelve-inch sewer pipe in Fort Meade, Florida, be- came clogged with sand and dirt. According to the "Engineering Record" several sewer - cleaning contrivances were used and about $1,500 was spent, but to no avail. The pipe remained clogged as before. At this j uncture the superintendent of water and sewers secured a small alli- gator, to which he fastened a rope. The 'gator was lowered into the pipe. After a struggle in the unsavory environment he reached the next manhole, dragging the rope after him. When he had traveled one section of the pipe, the rope, to the middle of which knotted chains were attached, was pulled back and forth and the obstructions removed.

Following this success, other alliga- tors were .used, until at the present time ten are employed for cleaning sewers. They are doing what skilled workmen equipped with modern appa- ratus have failed to do.

���The blotched and wrinkled hide of a living, squirming alligator makes a most efficient sewer-cleaning apparatus

��a complete grocery store on wheels. The vehicle serves a large rural territory where the homes of the farmers are at considerable distance from the town store. It makes more than a hundred stops per day serving its customers with a complete stock of groceries, green goods, meats and candies. The interior of the store is electrically lighted and heated from the exhaust gases of the motor in winter tipe. Beneath the body at the rear are two chicken coops with hinged swing-back bottoms for live poultry.

��Grocery Store on Wheels Serves Large Rural Territories

THE progressive merchandizing me- thods of to-day made possible by the proper utilization of the motor truck are well illustrated in the accompanying views which picture

���The interior of the grocery car with its snow-white bins and spotless counters

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