Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/278

 262

��Popular Science Monthly

��A Lovely View of this Thermometer May Be Had Through a Periscope

SUB-STATION operators are like waterworks engineers — generally with plenty of time on their hands and always devising short-cuts and ingenious devices of one kind and another about their respec- tive domains to do their work with more dispatch. These improvements are of great value in emergencies, not to mention everyday routine.

Here we have an indoor periscope devised by em- ployees at a Walla Walla, Wash., sub-station. It is for the purpose of reading a thermometer high up on the side of a transformer. The line of sight goes from the thermometer to a mir- ror tilted toward it at the upper end of a metal tube, then down the tube to an- other mirror which faces the operator. Now the operator need not hustle around to find a stool or a stepladder whenever the thermometer needs reading. It may be said in passing, that ther- mometers are put on transformers in order that an eye may be kept on the tempera- ture of the insulating oil inside.

��T

��Feeding Cattle from Railway Cars to Fatten Them

HE desert cattle ranchers of Arizona and New Mexico have learned that to raise cattle is one busi- ness, and to fatten them is another. For this rea- son, they ship their cattle to California, where sugar beet pulp is obtained in abundance. One factory is located near the fields where the beets are grown. The cattle are turned into this field after the beets are harvested.

Under the fence is placed a trough which projects outside of the fence just enough to allow the beet pulp to be thrown into it from the cars. The cars run on tracks from the factory to the field and follow the fences around the corral. More space is thus obtained for the beef cattle to feed, and there is but little waste of fodder. In these war days the cattlemen are learn- ing to conserve stock food, as the cattle themselves are conserved for our use.

���A periscope for reading a thermometer high up on the side of a transformer

��If Coal Is Too Expensive,

Burn Sawdust, as They

Do in France

IN some portions of France where coal is so scarce and consequently so expensive that it is altogether un- obtainable by the poorer class of people, sawdust is being used as a substitute. The sawdust is rammed down tightly in cylindrical metal boxes, and a few drops of petroleum are poured over it. The fire thus made can be used for cooking and all domestic purposes, and will burn for several hours.

���Cars which run Iroin the factory to the fields throw the beet pulp into the troughs whicn run along the fence

��i

�� �