Popular- Science Monthh/ 



261 



Killing the Boll-Weevil with a 

 Deadly Gas 



EVERY bale of cotton that comes into 

 the United States must first be dis- 

 infected be- 

 fore it can be 

 placed on the 

 market. This 

 is necessary 

 because of 

 the boll-weevil 

 and other pests. 

 The cotton 

 is placed in a 

 steel chamber 

 from which 

 the air is ex- 

 tracted. Hy- 

 drocyanic gas 

 fumes, one 

 of the most 

 deadly poisons 

 known, are 

 then intro- 

 duced. The 

 gas permeates 

 every part of 

 the bale and 

 all living 



things are immediately killed. The boll 

 weevil is an undesirable immigrant. 



Driving Eight Hundred and Fifty 

 Rivets a Minute in a Trunk 



FROM the time he w^as seventeen years 

 old Thomas Gumming of Grand 



Underwood and UndLTwood 



The cotton bale is placed in an air-tight steel chamber 

 filled with hydrocyanic gas fumes, which kill all insects 



After twenty-five years of work Thomas Gumming in- 

 vents the first machine for riveting trunks at high speed 



Rapids was an influential business man, 

 devoting every spare moment to the con- 

 struction of a machine which would do 

 away with much of the hand labor required 

 in making trunks. Now he steps before 



the world with 

 the invention 

 here pictured. 

 The ma- 

 chine is about 

 as high as a 

 man. It oc- 

 cupies a floor 

 space measur- 

 ing approxi- 

 mately six by 

 six feet. A 

 child can run 

 it and yet it is 

 an intricate 

 piece of mech- 

 anism. 



An a u t o- 

 matic carriage 

 holdsthetrunk 

 firmly while it 

 moves through 

 the machine. 

 An entire side 

 is completed 

 at one time. The rivets are driven in a 

 straight line, something almost unheard 

 of in trunk-making. 



With the old one-man-power machine 

 used in factories, the operator must hold 

 the trunk and drive the rivets at the same 

 time. If he is an expert, he may drive 

 them in line. His speed is from eight 

 to ten per minute. Gumming's inven- 

 tion drives one hundred and 

 eight per minute with each 

 driver, four hundred and 

 thirty-two for the machine. 



When handled by an expert 

 it drives a total of more than 

 eight hundred and fifty each 

 minute. Think of it ! It does 

 the work of forty to one hun- 

 dred men. The operator simply 

 places the trunk in position 

 and controls the machine. 

 More drivers can be added if 

 necessary; each increases the 

 speed of the machine by driv- 

 ing one hundred and eight to 

 two hundred and twenty-five 

 rivets per minute. 



