Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/205

 Popular Science Monthly

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���Imagine a skyscraper hotel miles in height — say five hundred miles — and fully equipped with every modern convenience. Now lay this skyscraper carefully on its side on the ground, so that its elevators will be subways running in a trench under the building which will extend, in a straight line or in serpentine coils, miles out into the open country. This is Roadtown

��efficiency of the public utilities contained therein.

Being operated on the plan of an im- mense hotel, individual kitchens will not be necessary — the Roadtown kitchen near- est you will take your telephone order, and by means of automatic carriers running on a horizontal track, deliver your favorite dish right into your dining-room. These carriers will be arranged to preserve the heat in the food during transit, one section of the carrier remaining chilled for cold dishes. The meal finished, the carriers will be returned to the community dish- washer. The carriers will run along a single track and will be automatically switched to its proper recipient by a trip-key, similar

��in action to the type-distributing feature of the Linotype machine.

Evidently, to make doubly certain that our new "city farmer" will have every advantage of civilization, the inventor of Roadtown proposes to instal a number of utilities some of which are at present avail- able only to the rich. For a better idea of this intention, it may be well to describe briefly those at present under consideration.

The temperature of each room will be automatically regulated to suit its particu- lar occupant, by the use of the thermostat attached to the steam radiators. In very hot weather the refrigerating plants will pump cooled water through the radiators. Running distilled water, cooled to a health-

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