Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/340

 324

��Popular Science Monthly

���W

��Salvaging Motor Wrecks with a Special Equipment Gar

E have long been familiar with the

��wrecking train of the railroad with its special crew of trained mechanics and its hoists and derricks for clearing away debris or setting cars back on the track again in case of wreck or collision. But it is only recently that the wreckers for the motor world have come into view. One of the best equipped cars of this kind is operated by Mr. Meehl in Port- chester, N. Y.

The wrecking car with its crew is ready for instant service and answers calls within a radius of one hundred miles at any hour of the day or night. The car itself is a simple chas- sis. On the rear end is a two-ton hoist and all sorts of rope pulleys and tackle, besides jacks and tools for emergency repairs. A two- wheeled truck is part of the equipment and is used when towing cars whose wheels are out of commission. Two powerful acetylene searchlights are used to light up any night work and two heavy jacks are carried on the running board which are used to jack up the rear

��The wrecking car answers calls within a radius of one hundred miles, night or day

wheel when there is any hoisting to do and take the strain off the tires. With this car it is possible to tow in a wrecked car, no matter how badly it may be broken up and it is possible to pull the car out of any kind of a hole. It has frequently had occasion to hoist cars out of streams or up an em- bankment twenty-five or thirty feet high.

���The slits in these opaque glasses admit only a small percentage of direct light rays to the eye

��How the Eskimos Taught Us to Take the Glare Out of Motion Pictures

HAVING suffered from the flickering and glare of motion pictures, Dr. F. C. A. Richardson, of New York City, developed a pair of opaque eye- glasses with narrow slits in them, through which he views the pictures without the slightest discomfort. The Eskimos have used similar glasses for years in prevent- ing snow blindness. When a person looks at a motion picture with the naked eye, he receives the intense rays through a comparatively large area of the eye. Less than one-half of these rays are necessary. The other half simply tax the eye. They add nothing to the clearness of the picture and pro- duce the intense glare.

�� �