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Show i A Rlral to tho Pedometer. The pedometer's life of usefulness seems to be very seriously threatened by a French invention for recording speed and distance traveled by man, beast or vehicle. The inventor, E. J. Marey, of the Institute of France, has devised a very simple machine to which the name odograph has been given. It draws or traces a curve on a traveling band of paper, pa-per, which is a register of the sieed with which a person walks or a vehicle moves. The recording mechanism is not at all complicated and is not likely to get out of order. It consists of a cylinder covered cover-ed with ruled paper and revolved by clockwork. On this a stylus actuated by a wheel which traverses, the ground marks the trace, and the stylus moves at a rate proportional to the wheel, while the paper moves past it at right angles with a velocity proportional to the time. The slope of the trace is a record of the speed. The odograph is capable of ' being adapted to special purposes, such as measuring the speed of soldiers on the march, the rate that railroad trains travel, or the time made by racehorses on the track, and it is thought that in the more general use which promises to be made of this instrument it will be found to meet accurately numerous purposes pur-poses for which some such recorder has been needed. New York Time3. |