Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/926

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��Popular Science Monthly

���An inclined rear wall on the tender allows the coal to slide steadily down to a point in front of the vibrating pushers

��forms of motive power can be used with the apparatus. The side walls may be made to slope toward the center with advantage, for gravity- is a cheap force and should be made use of wherever pos- sible. The pushers extend clear across the bottom of the tender and move the en- tire lower stratum of coal with each forward stroke of the reciprocating piston. The device is the invention of Charles L. Heisler, of Sche- nectady, N. Y.

��Supplying Coal to the Engine by Means of Vibrating Pushers

WHEN the coal bin of a locomotive is full there is but a step between the fireman and the supply, but as the great iron horse eats back its food supply there is another step and then another, until firing partakes of the nature of a Marathon race. How to get the coal to the firemen in a big modern locomotive is a problem to which inventors have been giving their attention.

Strictly speaking, the device which is illustrated and which is intended to solve this problem is a vibrator rather than a conveyer, for the coal is not carried from point to point in a receptacle but is shoved by a vibrating pusher, which the: recedes, allowing more coal to drop in front of it, and then pushing that on- ward, the movement being transmitted to the fuel in front. The pushers are actuated by a reciprocating pis- ton, suitably governed, and preferably situated in the engine proper, but with such readily, detachable connections that the tender can be disconnected from the locomotive when desired.

The mechanism is con- trolled by a lever, which regu- lates a throttle in the steam connection with the vibrating piston and cylinder and which is under the direct manage- ment of the fireman. Other

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��A bulb inside the device throws its light around the egg

��Candling Eggs in the Newest Way Without the Aid of a Dark Room

,S far as the consumer is concerned there are only two kinds of eggs — • good ones and bad ones; and usually he cannot distinguish one from the other until he breaks the shell. But to the dealer there are several grades between

the best and the ^tm..ECE unusable eggs.

P I .OPENING foR E,&<5 For years these I'iPHOAGM PRt55ED grades have been

'■5T REFLXTOR, J. , ,

determined by candling — a pro- cess requiring a dark room and a point of light against which the egg is held to get a kind of X-Ray view of its in- terior. The pro- cess is slow and the conditions under which the men must work are more or less unsanitary.

A newer method em- ploys the candling de- vice shown in the il- lustration. This device confines the dark area where it belongs — just around the egg. The projection on top of the device has a slight slant so that it is impossible for any light to get to the egg from above. With this device one room may be used for can- dling, grading and packing.

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