Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/449

 Popular Science Monthly

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��An Improvement in the Clock Scheme of the Daylight Saving Plan

THE plan to gain thirty hours of play in the sunshine each summer month by daylight saving, ought to appeal to every pleasure and health-seeking Ameri- can. It is almost equivalent to getting more pleasure for nothing. And then think of the cartload of money that will be saved in this country by a hundred and ten million of inhabitants heating and lighting their homes for one hour less each evening.

It is contemplated moving the hands of the clock one hour ahead in the spring, and turning the hands back again in the autumn. This would entail a minimum amount of confusion. People would start to work, eat their meals, and keep their engagements when the clock hands point to the customary hours.

This scheme of moving the clock hands is a good one, but there is another plan which is slightly better. Why not move the clock dial backwards? The same ad- vantages would be obtained, and besides, at noon the hands would be at the top of the clock, at sunrise and sunset they would be at the bottom, as they always have been ever since the present style of clock has been used. This could be accomplished very simply by means of curved slots and screws, as shown in the illustrations. An- other way to accomplish the same purpose would be to use two separate, suitably marked dials. .

This way of working out the day- light saving scheme would be really scien- tific. Moreover, in the case of striking clocks, it would make unnecessary, when the hour is to be set back in the autumn, the turning of their minute hands eleven times around. For the striking mechanism of these clocks cannot be set back by simply moving the hands.

Clock makers

���assert that the interference with the mechanism caused by alter- ing the position of the hands im- pairs the accuracy of the timepiece. The hour hand should never be tampered with and the minute hand very seldom.

��Couniersir

���Instead of moving the hands ahead, the clock dial is moved back in the manner indicated

��That part of the pole above the platform will have to be removed and straightened

How a Cyclone Bent a Two-Hundred- Foot Flagpole

THE zephyr which early this Spring developed into a cyclone of the first magnitude, took a hurried trip to Kansas City, Missouri, and left its card in the form of a bent flagpole in Swope Park. The pole is composed of two main sections which are divided into a number of smaller ones. In repairing it the upper main section which is fastened at the middle of the pole will be removed and Countersunk lowered.

It would have been less remarka- ble had the pole been blown down or actually snapped off. The bend simply indicates the freakish ness of such storms and thequicknesswith which they change their direction.

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