Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/340

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��Popular Science Monthly

��would be a guard in charge of each safe.

If a ship equipped with such a system of floating safes should sink, the cover of the well would float ofif, thewaterwould enter the steel casing and force the safes to rise to the surface. Once on the surface the safes bob about, to be eventually picked up by a passing craft. The inventor has also provided for hermetically - sealed floats to be placed at the extreme bottom of the well under the last safe. Attached to this float is a cable which serves to indicate the position and identity of the ship.

It is said that the value of cargos annually lost on the British coast in time of peace is $45,000,000. Of course the loss has in- creased with the war. The Merida, sunk in collision with the Admiral Farragut, in 1911, sixty-five miles east of Cape Charles, in three hundred feet of water, had about $200,000 in valuables in the purser's safe. The Oceana, sunk off Beachy Head, in 1912, had on board $5,000,000 in gold and silver. The Lusitania had about $1,000,000 in gold and jewelry and several millions in securi- ties aboard. The .Islander, sunk near Juneau, Alaska, had $2,000,000 worth of Klondike gold aboard. The Pawabiac, sunk in Lake Huron, had $800,000 in treasure. The General Grant, wrecked on the Auckland Islands, in 1866, in eighty feet of water, carried $15,000,000 in gold bars and bullion. The flagship Florentia, lost in Tobermory Bay off the west coast of Scotland, also carried $15,000,000.

Then, remember the fleet of seventeen Spanish galleons with an accumulated treasureof $140,000,000, which was sunk in Vigo Bay, Spain. Six of the galleons, being in shallow water, were later raised, and about $20,000,000 recovered. But the others, containing $120,000,000, still rest at the bottom of Vigo Bay.

���Ship in the act of sinking, showing two of the safes which have floated immediately to the surface

��Delivering Orders to Conductors and Engineers on Speeding Trains

A DEVICE for delivering messages and orders to trainmen when the train is traveling at full speed has been invented by Edward Y. O'Con- nor and Carl N. McCaslin of Earl Park, Indiana. The station master simp- ly places the mes- sages in the device and holds it so that the conductor and engineer can catch them as the train rushes by. This is an improvement over present methods, since it eliminates a stop at each station where orders are to be given.

The device is of wood and consists of three forks with clips or leaf springs attach- ed to them. These clips serve as fasten- ing points for the cord upon which the messages are hung. The cord is thus held firmly in place.

Two messages can be delivered at the same time, one to the engineer and the other to the conductor, by holding the device so that the engineer may snatch his message and then reversing the position so the conductor may get his.

���The device is of wood and consists of three forks with cUps on which the message is hung

��The editor of the Popular Science Monthly wants to hear from readers who have interesting photographs and interesting articles to sell. New inventions, natural curiosities, queer ways of using old devices — all these make good pictures. Accepted contributions are paid for promptly and liberally. But readers must understand that only unpublished contributions offered exclusively to the POPULAR SCIENCE Monthly are desired.

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