Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/821

 Popular Sricficc Monthlif

The Martyr Pigeon of the British Navy. He Saved Four Men


 * \1[ /HERE in the world are we?" roars

VV one of the observers in a huge biphuie which is trying to make home after a run into a fog-bank, feared by all air- men. The raw biting air wraps around the four men in the machine, and nothing can be seen but blinding billows of fog. Darkness descends and they are still lost. There is a falter in the hitherto steady roar of the engine. "She's starting to miss!" yells one of the observers. The pilot silently adjusts his spark and throttle. She picks up, but the rhythm is again broken, worse than before. All faces are tense and nerves are tightening. Lost! Over the sea! Desperately the pilot struggles, to keep the engine running, but with a final crackle she peters out and the machine starts to glide down.

She lands with a splash in the water. She does not sink for she is fitted with hydroplane floats. The men cling to the machine. To repair her is hopeless in a running sea. " The pigeons! The pigeons!" a man yells. Here is a bare hope. After a struggle they manage to at- tach the message to a pigeon's leg and release him. little messenger fights way through the howling gale towards the place where instinct tells him his home lies. The val- iant' little heart never falters. At last he feebly flutters into hi? cote in England. It is his last effort though. His work is done, and his strength is spent. The attendant picks him up— dead.

The rescue of the avia- tors after great suffer- ings is another story, just as true and exciting as this. Suffice it to say that they were rescued. The stuffed body of the martyr pigeon is preserved in a glass case in honor of his great deed; and in the hearts of those he saved he has another monument built of gratitude.

���A winged messenger which saved the lives of four men at the cost of its own

��Bomb-inspector Eagan examining a deadly contrivance recently found in New York

You've Probably Escaped This Way of Being "Blown Up"

A BOMB containing enough dynamite to demolish the walls of the building in which he lived was recently found by a resident of the Italian section of New York city. At first glance the object seemed harmless enough. It was apparently a can, about ten inches in length and three square, used to con- oiive oil. But attached the can was a fuse at ight of which the dis- erer hurried to the iceman on post near by, and soon af- terward Owen Eagan, bomb ex- pert of New York, took charge of the death-dealing instrument.

He found in- side the can about a pound J and a half of dyna- mite, placed on a e of cement to make the bomb more effective. The fuse was about two

���and a half feet in length, and was connected with fulminate-of- mercury caps designed to explode the dy- namite. Fortunately the fuse was not burning when the bomb was discovered.

�� �