Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/256

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��Popular Science Monthly

���spread over a wide area. It can be used with perfect safety in the presence of gasoline, broken gas pipes, chemicals and other explosive fumes. This new light is already find- ing a wide use, not only in fire- fighting, but also wherever light in abundance is re- quired and where it is neither possible nor con- venient to run service wires. Where much guarding of factories must be done, as at present, the lamp is like- wise of great value.

��A new searchlight has been brought out by Edison which operates on a six-volt storage battery. Focus may be al- tered to throw either a wide or a concentrated beam. It is extremely useful at fires

Fighting Fires With Searchlights

WHEN Thomas A. Edi- son's phonograph works at Orange, New Jersey, burned some time ago and he saw firemen confusedly fighting the flames, handicapped and blinded by the lack of light, his active mind grasped the oppor- tunity to solve the fire fighting problem, and as a result we are indebted to him for the portable electric light called by its inventor the "sunlight of night."

This portable searchlight consists of a light, easily handled case of indestructi- ble steel, carrying an especially designed set of Edison's storage cells and having attached to it a powerful electric light with a big projector and intensifying re- flector. When the battery is fully charged, the lamp will project a light of 6,000 candle power for 4.5 hours, or > 2,200 candle power for eight hours. The lamp and case weigh forty-one pounds and they may be carried by hand or at- tached to an automobile or fire-engine.

The rays can be focused upon one spot to shed thousands of candle power of concentrated light upon a single window, or the beams may be quickly changed to

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��A Car For Use Where Man -Power Is Cheap

HE odd combination of a man propelled vehi- cle, with street car rails is to be found in Otsomiya, Japan. Man-power being cheaper, in that section of Japan, than horse-power, the street-car magnates of the town do not allow humane cciisiderations to interfere with their divi- dends.

The car shown in the illus- tration has seats for four passengers. The man behind the car is the human motor that propels the con- veyance.

The passengers must have true Oriental patience, because this method of trans- portation cannot be exactly speedy.

���Japainst stKcl car is propelled by a coolie's shoving one foot along the ground

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