Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/602

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��Popular Science Monthly

���out landing is often a problem. For this purpose a very ingenious method of using a parachute has been developed. Cylindrical pasteboard containers are pro- vided with an umbrella-like para- chute folded inside. By pulling a wire with a hook on the end to which the folded para- chute is attached, the par- achute can be pulled out, and then, due to the tension of the wire framework, automatic- ally spread out. Ob- servers stationed below pick up the film and send it at once to head- quarters for develop- ment.

��Aim and Pull the Trigger to Photo- graph an Enemy from the Air

THE scout in an airplane must have something better than his eyes. Anti-aircraft guns compel him to fly at not less than six thousand feet. The ground below is so far away that A it is impossible to dis- tinguish make-believe guns from real guns, or to identify the thou- sand and one conceal- ments practiced by the enemy.

As a result the camera has taken the place of the airman's eyes — an especial stereoscopic camera built directly in the machine itself. Dozens of pictures reveal the enemy's secrets with astonishing frank- ness. During one of the engagements at Arras, no less than seventeen hun- dred stereoscopic photo- graphs were made in a single day. William F. Folmer believes that bet- ter results can be obtain- ed if the camera is oper- ated by hand. And so he has adapted the well-known focal-plane shutter, with which his name is identified, to a camera which, as shown in the accompanying illus- tration, is handled like a rifle. The opera- tive mechanism of the camera is exactly like that of the focal-plane shutter cameras well-known to most amateur photog- raphers. Mr. Folmer's cam- era is provided with a regu- lation pistol-grip and trigger. When the trigger is pulled, not only is the exposure made, but a fresh section of the film is advanced for a new exposure.

The material of the cam- era is waterproof. So that if the aviator and his instru- ment should fall into water, his valuable films would not be damaged.

After a roll of film has been exposed, how to get it George L. Covert wants to travel to California from New York.

back to headquarters with- This is how he is doing it, with a caravan of his own invention

��Simply pull the trigger and take a picture

The camera is of the fixed-focus type, adapted for long-distance photography. A special telestig- matic /. 6.8 lens, as it is called, is employed, which is 14 inches from the plate and which gives results that would be obtained with ordi- nary lenses 24 inches from the plate. The box itself is 22 inches long, 6 inches square at one end, and 5 inches square at the other end. It weighs 10 pounds and is waterproof

��Making a Mule Push

and Pull at the Same

Time

GEORGE L. COVERT, crippled so that he must always use a wheel- chair, is traveling from New York to the Pacific coast in a queer way.

He sits in his wheel-chair and is pushed ahead by means of a shaft of his own invention. The shaft is fastened to the back of the wheel-chair and also to a mule's collar. Behind the mule is a small two- wheeled wagon in which part of the Covert family rides. Hence the mule pushes the chair and hauls the wagon at the same time.

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