Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/409

 Popular Science Monthly

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��Paddle Your Own Canoe— But Do It Mechanically

VENICE, in California, gets its name from its resemblance to Venice in Italy. Its streets are canals, and everybody travels about in boats. Ralph Johnson, a thirteen-year-old resident of the town, had a "cranky" little canoe that ! c built at home in his base- ment workshop. The craft is but ten feet in length, but wielding a paddle is slow, back-breaking, laborious busi- ness. So Ralph secured an old bicycle rear hub and con- verted it into, a neat four- bladed paddle-wheel. The wheel was then mounted on wooden forks, and securely bolted over the rear deck of the canoe. Three bicycle chains were stretched be- tween the sprocket of the paddle-wheel and a bicycle- crank hanger mounted in the cockpit athwart the gunwales. 'I he pedal was removed from the crank-hanger and a handle substituted. The tiny craft was also fitted with a rudder, which, by wire controls, is operated from left to right by the forward or backward movement of a lever convenient to the lad's left hand.

Instead of bending over a paddle, Ralph now cruises about, turning the crank in the cockpit of his boat as easily as he would operate a hand organ. With his left hand he steers with the rudder. Instead of laboring along at four miles an hour, he now travels at the rate of eight miles an hour with less effort.

����Ralph propels his boat by turning a crank in the cockpit. With his left hand he keeps the boat on its course

��A bloody finish with the revolver machine- guns. At right: Detail of the attachment

��Close-up Fighting with the Revolver Machine- Gun

AN Englishman, Charles J. Cooke, has invented a new magazine attachment for the auto- matic revolver.

The attachment is simply a holder which enables a number of stored maga- zines to be fed into the revolver as fast as they are needed. Such an "auto- matic" as the Colt .45 is pushed into the saddle on the upper end of the holder. When the eight shots have been fired, the usual ejecting spring is pressed; the empty maga- zine drops from the gun down into the slot in the holder, and is ejected. In- stantly, one of the full magazines held in readiness in the bottom of the holder is pushed up into place. When this magazine is ex- hausted, the two others can be fed into the hollow end of the revolver. A bayonet is placed on the lower end for hand-to-hand fighting.

The length of such an at- tachment would be slightly over twelve inches.

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