Mechanic Arts High School - Artisan Yearbook (Boston, MA)

Page 32 text:

If , r' ,f , 5' I IV , f , ,C , ' ' 1 1 f,,cw . - 30 Q THE ARTISAN 25,000 SLICES TO AN INCH The most modern machines for making thin slices can pare them off measuring' one micron thick-or 4-l00,000ths of an inch. These machines, known as microtomes, are used in biological laboratories for cutting fragments of specimens for microscopic examination. Some ot' these. are automatic devices which will prepare from one specimen a series of sections for comparison. WURLIVS HIGHEST SUSPENSION BRIDGE High above the waters of the Arkansas River, across the Royal Gorge, that in places attains a depth of 2,600 feet, cables are being slung for a suspension bridge. This bridge, it is said, will be the highest in the world when completed, Ellld is situated near Canon City, Colo. Huge openwork steel towers sunk into solid concrete masonry on either side of the gorge support the work. The main span of the. bridge will be S80 feet long, while the entire bridge including tl1e approaches will have a total length of 1,200 feet. MOTORS' PLACED IN GREATEST AIRSHIP High amid what appears to be a mass of tangled stee.l girders, mechanics are now installing motors that will drive the Akron, huge Navy airship and largest in the world, now nearing completion at the tloodyear-Zeppeli11 dock at Akron, 0. They will break all precedent in airship construction by being placed inside the hull. Earlier airships had their motors on the outside because the ships were lifted by hydrogen gas. An exhaust fiame or electric spark might ignite the highly intiammable. gas. When non- intlammable helium intiates dirigibles, no such precautions are necessary. The engines will drive propellers that can be pointed in any direction to propel the ship up, down, forward or back- ward. p l-..--E. GIANT ELECTRIC LIGHTS FOR NORTH POLE SUB When the. Nautilus, Sir Hubert Wilkins' submarine, plunges under the Arctic ice cap on its voyage to the Pole this summer, it will not be entirely blind. Two huge electric headlights of 1,000,000 candlepower each will cast beams of light nearly 100 feet ahead of the vessel. The lamps were tested to a pressure of 100 pounds to the square inch.

Page 31 text:

TH E ARTTSAN 29 STILL l'ICTl'llES OF HIGH-SI'l'IEIl ENGINES NOXV TAKEN To study the behavior of machines while they are running at high speed by Hstopping' or slowing down the rapid motion so the eye can perceive it. an improved type of instrument known as a stoboscope has recently been developed. VVith this type of apparatus it is possible to take still or moving pictures show- ing the speeding parts of machinery in clear detail. Such pic- tures are made possible by using a thyratron tube of the mercury- arc type, the intense actinic light of which allows making photo- graphs at exposures of ten-millionths of a seco11d. NINE-FOOT LIGHT TESTER One of the instruments used at the General Electric Com- llIlllj',S laboratories at Schenectady. N. Y.. to measure the output of various lights is a double-leaf diaphragm, similar to the one 011 an ordinary camera, the iris shutter. It is employed to cover a photometer which is said to be capable of gauging the intensity of almost any size of a lamp, from the tail-light of an automobile to a searchlight of o11e billion candlepower. THE AUTOMATIC CHEMIST Now comes the Wautomatic chemist, a device that relieves the chemist of one ot' the most tedious parts of making an analy- sis. As recently demonstrated in New York City, the automatom measures either the acidity or alkalinity of a solution or the amount of certain ingredients in it. When the measurement is completed a bell rings and lights a light. This fundamental operation known to chemists as Ntitrationv is important in every application of cl1e.mistry, from making shoe leather to the testing of a city's water supply. A careful titration may take half an hour of a cl1e1nist's time, but theauto- matic chemist requires no attention after the start. A beam of light from a lantern shines through the beaker containing the solution, falling upon a sensitive electric cell opposite. When the. solution turns white or neutral at the addition of one drop of the acid or alkali, the electric eye turns off the supply and rings the bell. The amount' of acid or alkali required to neutra- lize the solution can then be read from the graduated tube. The automatic cl1e111ist has bee11 found to be very accurate.

Page 33 text:

.Y ,I 3.1 M ,I ,M v1'.A.,d -av., L,.A 'v X'M THE ARTISAN 31 ROBOT ANSWERS TELEPHONE AND TAKES MESSAGE One of these days a telephone caller, having rung a friend may get this answer: Mr, Blank is not at home. He will be here at eight this evening. If you rare to repeat a message, Mr. lilank will receive it upon his return. An automatic device., the invention of lVilliam Schergens of S-t. Louis, Mo., answers the phone and takes tl1e message. VVl19118V8l' tl1e telephone rings, the device answers. Then it waits for a reply. FIGHT FIRE BY FREEZING IT WITH f'FUZZ GAS The kind of gas that puts the fizz into your soda Water, carbon dioxide, is being' used by the Los Axieles, Calif., fire de- partment to freeze fires. It is carried under high pres ure in cylinders. When released it shoots out in a cloud of below-zero snowflakes that reduce the temperature and absorb much of the oxygen. from the air, thus tending to smother the flames. A special truck has been designed for the department to carry the battery of cylinders that form this latest unit in the battle of science to reduce the huge annual loss by fire. Some time ago a test of carbon dioxide gas as a flame extinguisher was made in Germany. Since then other tests have been conducted in several parts of the United States. Tl1e addition of the gas unit to the california fire-fighting equip- ment tis expe.cted to prove valuable in combating chemical, paint, and oil fires, where streams of water are of little use. AIRSHIPS T0 USE GASES? Tl1e new blimp of the United States Navy, K-1, the largest non-rigid dirigible ever built in America, is to be used as a flying laboratory for testing various gases as motor fuels. The engines of this blimp will drive it iifty-two miles an hour, and it will have a cruising range of 2,000 miles. The new airship will carry a container to hold experimental gases which will replace gasoline as a fuel. A mixture of hydro- gen and ethane will be one of the first gases to be tested. HENRY GAIKTIAANIT, '31. The earliest known remedy for dandruff was the. guillotine!