Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/881

 Popular Science Monthly

��865

��costing fifteen cents per gallon, which is said to start easily and to develop even more power than the straight gas. Distil- late works fairly well in pure form in the ordinary gas engine equipment, and very well in the higher grade, which costs twelve cents per gallon.

Distillate vapor will not ignite from the electric spark in a cold engine, unless it is of a high grade, approaching gasoline, like the twelve-cent grade. The mixture is too heavy and oily, and will not take fire from the tiny spark, but if you draw it into a hot cylinder it breaks down into an explosive mixture the instant it strikes the hot walls. Then the spark starts something.

So, roughly speaking, the patented dis- tillate burning devices for the gas engine — chiefly for Fords — consist first of some form of stove or coil heated by the exhaust mani- fold, and so heating either the vapor taken into the carbureter or else the vapor after it comes out; and second of an auxiliary gasoline tank over the engine or on the dash to hold a little gasoline by which to start the engine in the chill of the morning. A valve is turned, admit- ting gasoline to the intake manifold or to the carbureter; the engine is started; then the valve is closed again, letting the distil- late take up its labors for the day.

One weak point of this device is that the carbureter is full of distillate, and, if the gas is taken into the car- bureter, it must first be rid of its distillate. A large Los Angeles marketcompanyuses straight distillate with an auxiliary tank for gas. When the cars are sent from the store to the garage at night, they are run the last mile or so on gasoline from the auxiliary tank. This leaves gasoline in the car- bureter and gas va- por in the cylinders so that the car starts on gas and runs on it long enough to warm up the engine for the distillate vapor.

��A new experimental device for burning either distillate or kerosene consists of a double-compartment steel tank of small size located about the place usually occu- pied by the old carbureter, one compart- ment containing gasoline, the other distil- late or kerosene. One is piped to the main tank holding distillate or kerosene, the other to a smaller tank under the seat for, the gas. Two rods lead to the dash, and control the outlet valves of the two compartments. A coil of copper pipe runs from the main outlet pipe going to both valves into the exhaust manifold and then up into the main carbureter.

The fuel, whether gas, kerosene or dis- tillate, stands up in this coil, which becomes very hot from the exhaust gases. The driver turns one lever on the dash, admit- ting fuel from the gas side of the two- compartment tank into the coil, and start- ing the engine on the gas. Then he closes that lever and opens the other, allowing the distillate or kerosene to rise into the heating coil. The practically vaporized fuel is then sucked into the carbureter and sent very hot, to the engine.

���The bomb-loaded German piano taken as booty. Fortunately the bomb was discovered in time

��"To the Victors Belong the Spoils"— If They Dare Take Them

MR. A. K. YAPP, secretary in charge of the Y. M. C. A. work on the Western front, in a recent interview said: "The spirit of the men is marvel- ous. We feel we are able to do a great deal to help them during their leisure by providing little luxuries that mean much to the men." One of these luxuries in one of the camps was a piano taken from the Germans. Concealed in the piano was a bomb with the fuse at- tached to one of the piano strings so that when a certain note was struck, explosion of the bomb would follow.

�� �