Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/702

 Popular Science Monthly

���ward at the base of the shell.

The fuse is made in the ordi- nary way and behind it is a chamber for the explosive charge. The projectile is fired just as any shell is fired. The explosion re- leases the cutting arms and they cut through any object with devastating force.

The chain shell is constructed similarly except that short chains are wound around the gaine and separated by disks which keep them in place until the projectile is emptied. Sometimes the chains are weighted heavily at the ends. When the explosion takes place the chains fly out with fearful force and in addition to their high-speed forward movement they rotate rapidly. Needless to say, where they hit something, there is nothing left.

���A chain shell exploding. The h eavy chains weighted at the ends tear through the heaviest wire entan- glements as though they were spider webs. The shell at the left shows how the chains are wrapped around the gaine ready to spread out at the time of explosion. The shell at the right has a pair of cutting arms which cut through entanglements as easily as you can cut a thread with scissors

��Shells with Scissors Attachments That Cut Wire Entanglements

THERE seems no limit to what the new shells can do. One of the latest shells has a sort of scissors attachment which, when released by the explosion, will cut through the strongest wire entangle- ments. Another releases a number of short chains when it explodes. These chains are sure to wreck anything they touch.

The scissors shell has an opening in the casing through which the cutting arms project. They are slightly recessed in order to avoid wind resistance. The arms are attached near the nose of the projectile. They are mounted on steel studs in such a manner that they

��Weighing Your Coal by the Ounce or the Pound

SOMETHING new in shovels has been invented by David Moffatt Myers, of New York. Perhaps the inventor thought that the soaring price of coal meant that hereafter it would be weigh- ed by the pound. His shovel weighs every ounce of coal. This paragon among shovels looks like any other iron shovel except for some embellishments on its handle. It has a sliding hand-grip near its pan. The grip is held by levers and a spring. When the stoker grips the handle and loads the shovel the load nat- urally shifts to his left hand. The spring allows his grip to move upward in pro- portion to the weight of the coal. Links transmit the motion to a toothed bar, which turns a counting mechanism

���Spring -

��Counting mechanism Transmission bar

��can rock and expand in order to throw the free ends out-

��As the coal is shoveled, the total weight may be read in the exact number of pounds and ounces

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