Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/503

 PopuUir Science Monthlij

Listen to the Nose Flute of the Untutored Filipino

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��IT is not an uncommon spectacle to see a colored man play a harmonica with his nos- trils. When it is done, how- ever, it always awakens a certain degree of wonder. Among the Filipinos a flute is never played in any other way, and it would create as much surprise in that country to see a man play a flute with his mouth. Why they see fit to play with the nostrils instead of the mouth we do not know. Moreover, they do this with the greatest ease, and can play the general run of music except the very fast rag time. Dare we perpe- trate a pun and say that it must be a nose-pipe?

���roads. The body of the wagon rests upon a system of springs, which absorb all sharp shocks that might cause the explosion of the nitroglycerin. The load consists of enough nitro- glycerin to "shoot" several oil-wells and of the necessary tubes, tools, etc. The tubes are filled with nitroglycerin and cautiously lowered into the borehole of the well. The uppermost tube has at the top a firing head which is exploded by a falling or sliding weight, called the "go- devil" and sets off the nitro- glycerin charge. From four to six quarts ordinarily con- stitute a charge, but larger charges are used.

Electric Blasting Without Blasting Machine

��Nasal music of an unfamiliar kind

��Traveling in the Oilfields with a Possible Earthquake

RIDING over rough country roads in a spring wagon loaded with nitro- glycerin is an occupation that is not likely to appeal to the average man, yet there are those who make it their business to carry explosives and who become so accustomed to the hazardous

��work, that they scarcely give a thought to the risk of traveling, so to speak, with a potential earthquake.

In the oil districts of Pennsylvania, Texas or Cali- fornia you may meet ve- hicles like the one in the pic- ture, traveling slowly along the country

���i£ Brown and Dawson

The stock-in-trade of a

��very largely of enough nitroglycerin to raze a town

��THE safest and most convenient way of firing charges in blasting is by using the electric spark, and blasting ma- chines for generating the required spark are in general use wherever blast- ing operations are carried on. Farmers, who often have occasion to do blasting of stumps, rocks, etc., but not often enough to justify the expense of purchas- ing a blasting machine will be inter- ested in the suggestion offered by Mr.W. A. Saun- ders, New Hampshire, who made shift to fire a circuit offive charges of dynamite with a spark obtained from a dry-cell battery of his autom ob ile, when no blast- ing machine was available on a certain oc- casion. This is a handy wrin- kle to be ac- quainted with on occasion.

��'well-shooter.

��It consists

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