Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/570

 554 Popular Science Monthly

Loading Trucks Without Disturbing Even a Battleship Would Sink If It

��Sidewalk Traffic

IN order to save many steps between their wagons and the loading platform, the truckmen have a habit of backing their vehicles against the shipping platform or against the curb-stone and spanning the i n t e - r v e n i n g sidewalk with a board or chute. The result in either case is that you and all the other pe- destrians, find-* ing your path blocked, must leave the side- walk and either walk out into the gutter and around the truck and horses, or climb up a few steps to the level of the loading platform and

���The cases are placed on the chute and slide down by gravity to the men on the waiting truck

��Were Not Cleaned

ONE of our big warships was brought into dock the other day for a cleaning. Two hundred men worked all day scraping off six hundred tons of animal and plant growth from its sides and bottom. This tremendous quantity of sea life had ac- cumulated in less than two years, during which time the ship had trav- eled many thousand miles. The weight of the barnacles was so great that from twenty-five to forty per cent extra cOal was consumed in maintaining the vessel's speed.

��down a few steps on the other side. All of which saves steps and much hard work for the truckmen, but makes the lot of the pedestrian unhappy.

Someone who is evidently thoughtful has recently devised a loading chute which

��The Carrier Pigeon Still Holds Its Own as Trusted Messenger

DESPITE the convenience of the tele- graph and wireless, carrier pigeons are still used to a great extent in sections

��is now being used by a New York city of the war zones where the telegraph and

��wireless are not available.

The accompanying photograph was made

in Salonica, and shows a dispatch

bearer and the special basket in

which he carries his pigeons. In Paris

there are numbers of the birds in

training.

��firm. This chute, as will be noted in the accompanying illustration, is supported by a form of tripod at a distance above the sidewalk sufficient to clear the tallest pedestrian, who can pass under it without discom- fort of any kind. Meanwhile the chute, having a suffi- cient slant, allows for cases to be placed at one end and slid down by the force of gravity to the truckmen ready to receive them.

The tripod is hinged to the chute, so that it may be folded against it for the sake of compactness. This is an important fea- ture, since the cliute is not a permanent structure but is erected only at such

times as the trucks are A dispatch bearer and his pigeon, which he carries in a

loading or unloading. special basket to the place from which the bird is sent

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