Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/897

 Popular Science Monthly

��Illuminated Muffs— They Rob London Fog of Its Terrors

ILLUMINATED wearing apparel hereto- fore has been designed chiefly for men; now the women may blaze forth in glory.

Take, for example, the muff illustrated here. It is adorned with an animal's head having two eye sockets into each of which a small electric bulb is screwed. A bat- tery nestles comfortably in a pocket in the bottom of the muff. Wires con- nect eyes to eyes, and eyes to battery. A push button is inserted in the circuit — and the muff is ready for opera- tion.

If, on a dark night, our lady drops a coin, loses her way, can't find the keyhole — she need only press the but- ton and lo! there will be plenty of light.

When the fog settles down over London, during these times when the streets remain unlighted at night on account of air raids, the wearer of one of these muffs will not be likely to become confused or disturbed.

���Above: The muff illuminated. At right: Diagram of the wiring plan

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��many Europeans live. But when the canals freeze over, the youngsters flock to the ice with the instinct of ducklings for water. They make a kind of sled out of odds and ends of wood— and wood is a luxury in China — and then add to their equip- ment a long pole having a spike in one end.

Standing on the sled, they push themselves along at a fair rate of speed, and their screams of enjoyment are not less hearty than those of boys in other parts of the world.

Generally speaking,. China is a cold country compared with western territories in the same latitude. The winters are much more ,. Electric severe and of ^^s, bulbs

���Wiring

��Battery

��longer dura- tion than ours, so that the little Chinese boys get a great deal of enjoy- ment out of their impro- vised sleds.

��The Homemade Ice Sleds of the Chinese Boys

BOYS are boys the world over, and they will find a way to enjoy the ice and snow, whether they know anything about skates or not. In China, skates are a great novelty, and are seen only in cities in which

���The Chinese boys fashion their sleds out of odds and ends of wood and push them over the glassy surface with spiked poles

��Mysterious Sounds That Continually Baffle Science

MYSTERY still attaches to certain ex- plosive sounds, heard in various parts of the world and known to science as "brontides." On the coast of Belgium these sounds seem to come from the sea, and are called locally "mistpoeffers." In the Ganges delta, of India, similar sounds are called "Barisal guns." Brontides are well known in some parts of Italy, where they bear a great variety of names. In Haiti a sound of this character is known as the "gouffre," while in parts of Australia it is called the "desert sound." Brontides mostly take the form of muffled detona- tions, of indefinite direction. Probably they are of subterranean origin. Studies of eccentricities in the transmission of sound through the atmosphere, lead to the con- clusion that some of the sounds hitherto reported as brontides were really due to cannonading or blasting.

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