Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/43

 Popular Science Monthly

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��Attacking Mail-Car Robbers with Deadly Fumes

IT would be a sad gang of robbers who tried to break into the railway car invented by George W. Meyers, of the United States Army. They would be greeted with clouds of poisonous gas fumes.

Meyers' robber- proof car works with extreme sim- plicity. Two tanks, In which fumes of cyanide of potas- sium are stored under pressure, are fitted inside of the car at each end. These are connected with a perforated pipe which extends all around the door of the car, just, in back of the outer framework. Should the train be held up, the locomotive engineer would telephone the guards within the car, who would immediately open the valves of the tank. The fumes would stream out through the pipe perforations and into the robbers' faces. The door being gas-tight, the deadly gas could not penetrate into the car.

���The overhead trolley system and the fastener keep the cow's tail from annoying the milker

��Making the Cow's Tail Behave with a Trolley Restrainer

JOSUA AERNI and Joseph O. Venden, of Guler, Washington, have come to the rescue of the legion of tail- flogged milkers,with a device which makes the cow's tail behave.

Briefly, the de- vice consists of a clamp, which holds the ' tail and an overhead trolley system which per- mits the holder to be moved from one cow to another. As the drawing shows, a rod is attached to the wire track in such a way that it can be readily moved and held in a rigid vertical position at the same time. At its lower end it is joined to the tail fastener by a flexible cord. The inventors do not take the trouble to de- scribe their fastener,, but it is evidently designed so that a strong spring grasps the tail.

���•» A -Tank of Cyanide of Potassium fumes, under pressure

��The deadly fumes are turned on from their tanks through the perforated pipe around the door

��Guinea Pigs Were Once Raised Like Chickens for Food

THE cavy (guinea pig) is typically a pet animal, and has no other excuse for existence than the pleasure he gives those who appreciate his good qualities. . . . But it is to the undeniable edibility of the cavy that we owe the existence of the cheerful little squeaker of today.

"The Incas of Peru long ago domesticated the wild ancestor of the modern animals — a small, tailless, unicolored member of the genus Cavix, the exact identity of which is a matter of some doubt. These creatures were allowed to run freely about the homes of their owners, whose object in breeding them undoubtedly was for their food value.

"The time which must undoubtedly have elapsed since this domestication was first begun is evident from the entirely changed color of the present-day cavy." {Pets, by Lee S. Crandall. Henry Holt & Co., New York.).

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