Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/554

 538 Popular Science Monthly

A Houseboat of Marble Built to Amuse The Airplane to the Rescue of Storm- Chinese Royalty Tossed Mariners!

��THE most beauti- ful and per- il a p s the most costly houseboat in the world is the one illus- trated on this page. It is made entire- ly of marble and served to amuse the household of Chinese royalty.

When the boat was built no one

knows. It floated on a small lake within the precincts of the "Forbidden City" in the last days of the Manchu dynasty. Re- cently it was removed to the national park in Pekin.

���The marble houseboat is exquisitely carved and has elab- orate trimmings of solid gold. It is enormous in size

��"Do It Electrically' ' Also Applies to the Up-to-Date Barber

AN electrically operated hair cutter xi which entirely eliminates the shears has been devised. It con- sists essentially of a light standard with cross-arms at the top to support a small electric motor connected with the clippers by a flexible cord three or four feet long. In cutting long hair the fingers and comb are used in exactly the same manner as with shears. In out- lining the hair in front the cutters are turned up- side down and the points pressed close to the skin ; this produces a straight line without danger of cutting the skin. When the cutter is held in the same position and passed rapidly over the hair stray wisps are removed.

The hair is cut in a fraction of the time us- ually required.

���Cutting the hair electrically with clippers instead of shears

��MORE than a hurricane on the high seas do sailors fear even sixty- mile gales near a rocky coast. To the life savers, also, a rocky coast is most dan- gerous. In any attempt of theirs to reach a ves- sel that is doomed, what is to keep their puny shell from being dashed upon the rocks? During the great storms off the coast of Maine, for instance, the experienced guards well know the useless- ness of any attempt of reaching ships in rowboats. Rockets or cannons are brought into action immediately and with these the guards attempt to shoot lifelines out to the foundering vessel. With these lines, it is j' often possible to carry the sailors off the vessel in hawsers. Notwith- standing this admirable method, there are times when the lines do not reach the sinking ship and crew. Rocket nor mortar is powerful enough to carry the heavy lines against the wind, far off the land. But shall we let the sailors perish, because of that? Not while there is a way out. And that way is with the airplane, the next great servant of man that is coming as soon as the world sees a righteous peace. The airplane is a rider of winds, and sixty-mile gales will never prevent it from carry- ing a lifeline to the ship! The plan has already been worked out by the United States Coast Guard.

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