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Show H I POPULAR SCIENCE I Wl Copy Holder for the Typewriter. One of the trials of the stenographer is to find a place for the notebook, where ft will be within easy reach of the eye and yet securely held against folding up while the notes are being I transcribed. It should be remembered "' vatlB;he.eJosr. the, book. can be placed to the keys the less danger "there Is of becoming confused in glancing back ; and forth. It is this special feature of supporting the notebook close to the keyboard which recommends the use of the invention Just designed by a New York man to aid the stenographer. In the picture the device is shown in position on the machine, with the leaves of the book secured in the lamp and the open page of notes ex- torn of the well Is reached, when tt person picks himself up and makes his escape through one of the exit doors provided, none the worse for his fall. The Inventor is Philip H. Dedrick of Grandview-on-Hudson, N. Y. 8weeplnj Rooms by Air. " A 'New" York man--has invented an, apparatus that is designed for sweeping sweep-ing rooms by air. Not only are floors renovated in this fashion, but carpets and rugs and walls and draperies, upholsteries up-holsteries and ceilings, are all subject to Its beneficial effects. The cleaning is done by passing the nozzle of a hose over the object to be cleaned, a machine in the cellar drawing the air and Incidentally the dust and dirt Into the hose at a lively rate and carrying all these accumulations through smooth-joined two-inch pipes to the separators In the basement. The operator runs the nozzle close to the surface of the dusty article, and the dirt is whisked into the hose by the strong suction and drawn into the dust bins below. No dust is raised, and. the air of the room is really improved im-proved by this drain "upon It. It Is elalmed that the floors can be cleaned quicker and much better than by the old-fashioned brooming. Of course, at present the suction renovator is only adopted to the larger buildings, the cost of a plant being several thousands of dollars, but the time may come when the glory of the household broom will be forever dimmed. Halter Tie Regulator and Securer. Instances are on record where horses and cattle tied In stalls have become tangled up In the rope and either broken a leg or strangled, owing ow-ing to the length of rope allowed them In order that they may reach their food and He down to. rest If the tie Is left long enough to allow the animal's ani-mal's head to reachthe floor when lying down, there Is sufficient slack when the animal is standing to dangle around 'the' legs -and .become tangled . up with the feet. As an improvement in the method of securing horses and Supports the Book CIom te Key. posed for reading. The upright support sup-port of the copy holder is attached to either the frame of the machine or the carriage, and the horizontal clamping member Is pivoted on the support, permitting; per-mitting; it to swing across the machine. ma-chine. The book being opened at the proper place, the upper portion is forced Into the clamp, the lower half resting on a secondary support on the front of the machine. When a page of notes is llnlshed it is turned back and inserted under the auxiliary damp, while the book Itself can be closed and- the copy examined when - necessary without-losing the place. ' Mastodon Remains in New York. The skeletons of sixty mastodons have been found in the state of New York distributed along certain well marked belts, as follows: Thirty-four in eastern New York from Albany -south through Newburgh; thirteen from Rochester south through Livingston Living-ston county; two near Chautauqua lake and two near Ithaca. . Outside of these belts the state Is barren. It would appear, therefore, that the mas-' mas-' todons had distinct feeding grounds, and the remains indicate that the bsajits .were-llvlng in a time not very k remote. Their skeletons are now usually found resting on the boulders of old streams in a comparatively thin layer of peat. No specimen of the mammoth has yet been found In the state. When President Roosevelt, then t- governor of New 3'ork, urged that the mammoth should appear in its coat of arms, it was evident that although a mighty hunter of existing big game he was a bit weak In his knowledge f extinct types. A Unique Fire-escape., The accompanying illustration represents rep-resents a fire-escape which stands in a class alone as far as novelty is concerned, con-cerned, having a unique feature which' has probably never before been applied ap-plied to the work of saving people from burning buildings. There might possibly be one objection to the erection erec-tion of this apparatus on buildings,, and that is the strong temptation it will present to the boys as a plaything. play-thing. As will be seen, the idea is to erect a series of rigid platforms alternately on opposite sides of a well inside a pjtmens ' lODS III Weight Takes Up the Slack. cattle In their stalls the halter tie hers shown should recommend Itself to the considerate farmer. It has the faculty facul-ty of taking up all slack In the rope, no matter what the position of the head may be: yet there is little exertion exer-tion required to lift the weight and-lengthen and-lengthen the tie when the animal lies down or reaches after food in the end of the manger. The device consists of a vertical tube, with a pulley at the top, over which the rope passes before be-fore being attached to the weight. The latter need only be sufficiently heavy to counterbalance the cord, as there is no strain to be overcome until tbe weight reaches the top of the tube and is held in place by the roller. Progress of Invention. . The electric motor is fast displacing the leather belt in factories. The average watch represents but twelve hours of human labor. Three of the eleven dirigible balloons bal-loons made In fifty years have killed their inventors. Experience has shown that nothing Is gained, in ordinary conditions, by placing electrical power plants at the coal mines, it being cheaper to haul the coal by rail than to transmit its power by wire. A few years ago quartz mines that would not yield $50 to the ton were despised and rejected as unprofitable. Now, with improved methods of extracting, ex-tracting, ore containing as low as $3 a ton pays fair dividends to the stockholders. stock-holders. The cost of cyanide treatment of ore in a typical southwestern Colorado Colo-rado plant, where about 125 tons are handled daily, Is stated to be 70 cents a ton 35 cents for cyanide, 20.5 cents for labor, 3.5 cents for powder and fuel, and 4.5 for zinc. The gas used in the modern gas engine en-gine performs nearly or quite double the work obtained from it when used for steam heating purposes. In time the gas engine, in utilizing the blast furnace gases, will make pig iron production pro-duction more than doubly profitable. Spring Platforms Break the Fall. building or between two buildings, setting set-ting each platform at such an angle that anything sliding from It will strike on the next platform at right angles to the first. This of Itself would break the force of a fall, and a person could drop from the roof to the ground with no more serious in-Jury in-Jury than a severe shaking up; but the inventor has placed a spring cushion on each of these platforms, which would reduce to a minimum the Jar occasioned oc-casioned by a fall from one platform to the next. As a person drops on one of the cushions it yields beneath his weight and then discharges its burden to the next cushion, and so on, until the bot- |