Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/242

 226 Popular Science Monthly

Turn It at Any Angle. It's Always Ready to Shoot

SEVERAL attempts have been made to mount machine guns on automobiles and motor boats. The principal problem to be confronted is that of vibration. In every case the inventors have devised several forms of

���mountings which would lessen to a considerable degree vio- lent shocks. Needless t o say, they have been hard put to it/to devise a mounting that would stand up under the ex- cessive vi- bration of a travel i ng automobile. The ac- companying illustration shows a new mounting for a machine gun which enables the gun to be fired in any direction without changing the base. A ball and socket joint gives the greatest possible latitude of range, and the gun can be fired at any angle to straight up. The flanged base and about one foot of the supporting column are attached per- manently to the automobile floor. The stand can be lifted off this base and put on another car, or by driving its pointed end into the earth it can be used for land firing.

��A machine-gun mounted on a ball and socket base fastened permanently to the floor of an automobile. It can be fired at any angle to straight up without changing or altering

��vised, but it is so high that the starting platform has to be reached in an elevator. A steel car takes the place of the old pine board. From three to ten persons may be swung through space in the same car. The car is suspended not from a rope but from metal rods, preferably of steel. The tower which supports the swing is

composed of steel pillars; so is the ele- vator build- ing, as well as the ele- vator itself. The swing chair or car is held in po- sition on the starting platform by a locking de- vice. When the car is ready to be released, a lever is oper- ated which lets the car fall. The in- ventor does not tell us whether or not the car will return to the starting platform every time it is released. Neither does he explain how the car is brought back to the starting platform. Perhaps he figures that with a minimum of resistance it will return to the platform and thus be caught and held by the lockingdevice without further trouble.

��A Giant Swing for the Summer Resort

INSPIRED by the swing 'neath the old apple tree, Frederick E. Happel, of Ballston, Virginia, has devised a giant swing for parks and recreation centers to thrill even the person who has grown tired of turning figure eights, riding down the roller coaster, and chuting the chutes. Not only is Mr. Ballston's swing by far the largest ever de-

���The giant swing is an overgrown edition of the old apple tree swing. It is made of steel

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