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Show Cy!j I m POPULAR SCIENCE ! necessary before the glass eye can be inserted. The inventor of this device is a resident of Missouri. Trolley-Ferry Bridge. " A French engineer by the name of Arnodin has bought out an arrangement arrange-ment whereby congested bridge traffic, it is claimed, will be relieved, and ferryboats may be done away with. His invention is a trolley-ferry bridge and consists of a car suspended above the surface of the water at any height desired by means of steel cables running run-ning on tracks placed on . the under side of a bridge-like structure. An overhead electrical conductor furnishes fur-nishes the current" to the motors which propel the truck, the operator managing it in a manner similar to that employed on trolley cars. A New Machine for the Farmer. Not many years ago the farmer was compelled to plant all his seed by band, walking many miles and carrying carry-ing heavy burdens to. sow the grains or plant the potatoes which were to" yield the harvest In the fall, and even the grass had to be cut with scythes. Now? all this -labor is performed' by machinery, while the farmer rides over the ground, guiding his team, and accomplishing more in a single day than he could in a week before the Inventor set out to aid him in his toil. Still another machine has been brought forward, this time a weed puller, invented by a man in Minnesota. Minne-sota. Our picture shows the invention doing its work, and gives an idea of the mechanism by which it Is operated. operat-ed. Two fluted rollers are mounted The Largest Flying Creature. No animal combines all the most favorable conditions for a flying machine ma-chine weight, power, spread of wing, etc. The birds with the greatest spread are not the strongest, and the most powerful are not those of the longest flight. The frigate bird is, perhaps, the bird which lives most in the air, yet its muscles are rela-uvelyweak rela-uvelyweak and it owes its pre-eminence more to skill than to muscle. The albatross has a -maximum weight of 8 kilogrammes and a spread of wing of 3 metres, but the width of wing is relatively small, so that the wing surface is not above 7-10 of a square metre, which is much less than that of the condor or the California vulture. vul-ture. We must go back to extinct creatures crea-tures to discover the best-designed flying fly-ing machine. The pterodactyls, huge flying reptiles, which lived in the Cretaceous period, had wings 2 7-10 metres long, but small, narrow bodies and very light bones, much lighter than those of birds. The total weight of their bodies has been estimated at about twelve kilogrammes, so that their flight must have been as easy as that of the butterfly. To Prevent a Ship Grounding. In nearly every issue of the daily papers accidental grounding accidents to vessels are reported, with the loss varying from temporary delay to the complete wreck of the ship. Oftentimes Often-times no blame can be attached to anyone, any-one, and the ship strikes a hidden rock or shoal before warning can be given or any action taken. For this ! on an adjustable support at the rear of i a sulky, with chain gearing to rotate y them rapidly as the machine is drawn over the ground. As the flutings on j the face of the rollers mesh closely to- ( gether, it is easy to understand how ! any weed or grass which once gets be- ? tween them will be drawn up, until it is finally lifted out of - the ground, roots and all. To insure the killing of higher growths, the machine has been fitted with a series of rotary blades, . which feed the tops of the weeds ; down beneath the face of the first ; roller, instead of allowing this roller to strike the stems and push the ' weeds over, without uprooting them. An Improved Plane. Q The patents have been secured for ! the automatic plane invented by Jerry W. Kirby of this city. The plane is one of the most novel and efficient of all the labor-saving devices offered in a number of years. It is operated by means of an automatic roller. When v the plane is pushed ahead the roller ' is even with the rest. When the '. plane is drawn back the automatic roller moves forward and downward, at the same time raising the bit so that ; face. ! The old-fashion.ed plane has always , been found awkward and heavy. Un-j Un-j der the new process the entire instru-.. instru-.. ment is made of pressed steel, weighing weigh-ing not more than two-thirds as much f as the old one, and selling for about half the price. The rollers are hollow hol-low and so arranged that it is practi-cally practi-cally two planes in one, one being ballbearing ball-bearing and the other on spindles. ' In front of the cutting bit there is an automatic light adjuster. When a de-i de-i feet is discovered in the rollers they i may be taken out and new ones in-' in-' serted. In short planes the rollers ! are small, while in jointed planes they ; are large and few. The new device has been adopted by about 80 per cent of the carpenters who have seen it. Butte (Mont.) Inter-Mountain. New Eyeglass Arrangement. I Whether or not the invention pre- j sented in the accompanying illustra-j, illustra-j, tion is practical we cannot say, having r never had the pleasure (?) of making ! a practical test of this new eyeglass; 1 but it would seem as though consider-! consider-! able bravery would be required to place the glass in the position in ! which it is designed to rest. This position, po-sition, as will be seen, is directly over the eyeball, with the edges of the glass inserted beneath the upper and lower lids, to maintain it where it will aid the eye in its work. The specific 1 form of the lens is, of course, imma-t imma-t terial, and will vary with the require-I require-I ments of the user that is to .say, the I glass will have more or less magnify-! magnify-! ing power or will be arranged to com-I com-I pensate for astigmatism, etc., after the I manner of ordinary glasses. It dif- Reverses the Engine and Lessens the Shock. reason it has occurred to an Austrian inventor that an automatic device for lessening the shock and reversing the engines would be of practical value on all vessels. An idea of his invention inven-tion can be gained from a study of the drawing, in which the artist has depicted de-picted the portion of a ship's bow which lies under water, with the apparatus in position. This consists of an extension prow, in which is mounted a sliding head, projecting at such an angle that it will strike any hidden object which would otherwise damage the ship's hull. In the end of this- head is a plunger, normally extended as shown, and serving to close the electric 'circuit which reverses re-verses the engines. The sliding head is backed by a series of strong springs or a pneumatic or hydraulic compression compres-sion chamber, yielding under the pressure pres-sure as the vessel strikes, and aiding the reversed propellers in clearing the boats. Progress of Invention. An electrically charged wire gridiron grid-iron is the newest fly killer. A red colored solution now obviates the need of a dark room in. photography. photog-raphy. A French scientist has cheapened the production of liquid air by half, so that its use in the arts may now be profitable. The use of electricity in everyday affairs is developing enormously in Great Britain. The usual price is 2 cents per unit. A bill is proposed in the German reichstag to prohibit the use of phosphorus phos-phorus in making matches, on the ground that the government has acquired ac-quired the patent of a new igniting substance harmless to the health of the employes and has placed It at the disposal of the match factories. ft This Lens Requires No Bows Nor ' Springs, f ( fers from those now in use, how's how-'s 1 ever, in requiring no springs or bows f ' to hold the lenses. The inventor also f claims for it that, in addition to aiding ( the vision, it may be colored in imita- tion of an eyeball and used as a sub-I sub-I stitute for the glass eye, as is now 1 3 it |