Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/448

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��Popular Science Monthly

���The pilot's wheel which controls the direction of the primitive ferry boat

The force of the current against the side of the boat carries it across stream

��it is propelled by the current of the river at no expense. Two poles, eighty feet high, made of iron pipe, were erected, one on each side of the river. Between them is stretched a steel cable to receive a pulley. Ends of a rope are attached to the bottom of the pulley. The rope is fastened to each end of the ferry boat, then brought along the side of the boat and passed around the hub of a wheel, resembling the steering wheel of a steamboat.

When the wheel is turned it winds up the rope, so that the length from one end of the boat to the pulley is shorter than the length from the other end. This naturally turns one end of the boat upstream. The force of the current, act- ing against the boat, pro- pels it across the river. To recross, the rope is shortened.

��Making the Missouri River Drive a Ferry Boat

ALTHOUGH Bellevue was the first settlement in Nebraska, it never constructed a bridge across the Missouri River. In 1810, the American Fur Com- pany had established a post at that place and it seemed as if the village would become a thriv- ing city. But, by a turn of fate, the place re- mained a small town, and no bridge was ever built between Omaha and Platts- mouth, a distance of about twenty-five miles. For some time a gasoline ferry boat was main- tained at Bellevue, but it was not de- pendable and was abandoned years ago, leaving farmers with no means of crossing with their wagons and live stock. An old-fashioned mode of crossing the Missouri river by ferry was then revived.

The old-new ferry is interesting because

���One squirrel was on the line and the other on the grounded brace when their noses touched

��Alas! The Price of This Kiss Was Instant Death

THE top of a pole carrying nearly four- teen thousand volts of electric current is a precarious trysting place. The accom- panying photograph of two squirrels en- gaging in what proved to be their kiss of death shows just how dangerous it is to spoon adjacent to elec- tric light feed wires. The two squirrels had evidently made an engagement to meet at the top of the pole and look for the lady in the moon.

Arrived there, as the latest hedonists say, they were in the act of giving the cus- tomary lover's greet- ing, when the touch- ing of their noses

��caused a short circuit and the souls of both animals were wafted heavenward. It was indeed a kiss of death. From the nature of the burns it was established that one squir- rel was on the line, and the other was on the brace which is grounded.

��Maybe you have special needs. Write to the editor about anything within the scope of the magazine. He will be glad to help you.

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