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Show Dr. Abbot's Solar Cooker in the West Hp HE Smithsonian Institution, in an-nouncing an-nouncing that Dr. C. G. Abbot, assistant as-sistant secretary of the institution, had left Washington for Mount Wilson, Wil-son, Cal., where a solar observing station sta-tion is maintained, said Doctor Abbot would, during the summer, make further experiments with his solar cooker. "This device for cooking, using only the heat of the sun as fuel," said the institution's announcement, "was brought to a considerable degree of perfection last year, all of the cooking cook-ing for the field party for the whole season being done with it. The apparatus consists of a parabolic para-bolic cylindrical mirror with a polished pol-ished aluminum surface, which focuses the sun's rays on a tube filled with mineral oil, which communicates with an iron reservoir in which are two baking ovens of different temperatures. tem-peratures. The circulation of the heated oil produces a very high temperature tem-perature in the ovens, which is maintained main-tained for several hours even after the sun has gone down or is covered by clouds. "With this cooker It was possible to cook meat, vegetables, bread, cereal, etc., and to can fruits and vegetables vege-tables and make preserves. This year it is hoped to even further perfect the device so that higher oven temperatures tem-peratures and more prolonged periods of heat storage will be obtained." Doctor Abbot's solar cooker may function all right on the top of Mount Wilson, but it will need a lot of tinkering tinker-ing to work satisfactorily in other parts of the West. There's the Imperial Im-perial valley, for Instance, where they fry eggs on stones along the road in shady spots. In Death's valley they have to put the stones in the fire to cool them off or the eggs would be almost al-most Instantly burned to cinders. |