Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/112

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��Popular Science Monthly

��TheElectric Floor-Scrubber — It Saves Human Energy

IN a certain office building in Chicago, where fifty-six thousand dollars a year had been spent for floor cleaning by the hand method, the electric floor scrubber, il- lustrated here, has cut the cost of the work in half.

The elec- tric scrubber is divided in- to two parts — the scrub- bing machine proper and the wheeled mop and wringer.

���The motor-driven scrubber washes the floor, while the mop sucks up the dirty water and deposits it in the tank at the rear

��the drum mounted beside the motor. The gear connecting this drum with its motor lets out the cable in such a way that no slack wires lie loose on the floor. The mopping machine, which like the

scrubber, is the invention of George W. Meyers, a me- chanical and electrical en- gineer of Chi- cago, is even simpler in construction. It is wheeled along behind the scrub- bing machine and by means of a duplex plun- ger, it sucks up the dirty water and powder.

��The operator of the machine plugs the electric cable leading to the machine motor into a socket on the wall. With the turning of the controller near the guide handles, the mo- tor spins around, turn- ing the eight weighted brushes around with it. Powdered soap and wa- ter from special holders are sprinkled in the de- sired quantities just ahead of the brushes.

The scrubbing m.a- chine is driven by its own power. The motor connects with the driv- ing wheels by a worm and wheel arrangement under the carriage, so that the machine scrubs along at a pace of a hundred and twenty feet a minute. While the brushes — ordinary scrubbing brushes — spin around, scraping and washing all dirt from the floor, the elec- tric cable feeds from

���To make the old pole last longer it is moored to a short pole treated with creosote

��Mooring the Rotted Telephone Pole to Prolong Its Usefulness

THE ever increasing cost of lumber has led to' the use of many devices to save wood. One of the most ingenious is the method to save tele- phone poles, which rot at the base just above and below the surface of the ground. The upper portion remains sound for a longer time than the base.

A short pole, creo- soted so as to withstand decay, is placed in the ground beside the old pole and firmly fastened to it. This adds sev- eral years to the length of time the pole will serve. The arrange- ment also serves as a protection to pedes- trians; for since the part buried rots long before the upper part, the fall might occur most unexpectedly.

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