574 



Popidar Science Monthly 



A Phonograph for Lazy People. It 

 Changes Its Own Records 



A GLORIFIED phonograph has been 

 patented by a young man in Cali- 

 fornia. His phonograph will do every- 

 thing but go out into the dining-room and 

 mix a cocktail when the music is over. 



Harry Scott, the inventor, gives the 

 fruit of eight painstaking years to indolent 

 humanity. His 



phonograph num- 

 bers among its 

 achievements the 

 ability to play both 

 disk and flat rec- 

 ords. But its forte 

 is the cylinder. It 

 will play cylinder 

 records, one after 

 another, without 

 re-winding, with- 

 out changing, in- 

 deed, without any 

 more effort than 

 sitting down in an 

 easy chair and 

 listening. 



Cylinder records 

 are played in a ver- 

 tical position. Eight cylinders are placed 

 in pockets that permit the upper rim to 

 project about one inch. The pockets are 

 cut into a revolving platform. When one 

 cylinder is finished, the table auto- 

 matically revolves until the next cylinder 

 is under the reproducing needle. 



The operation is continuous. A button 

 is pushed to start an electric motor. The 

 same push button stops the performance. 

 If intermissions between selections are 

 desired, alternate records are 

 removed. For dancing par- 

 ties, it is obvious that the auto- 

 matic changing mechanism has 

 advantages. 



Six patents have already 

 been issued upon this appara- 

 tus. Besides accomplishing the 

 feats outlined above, many 

 little niceties have been incor- 

 porated. For example, when 

 the lid is raised a frosted elec- 

 tric lamp flashes on. Lowering 

 the lid switches off the lamp. 

 Besides this, a small brush has 



lows the needle, carefully cleaning every 

 record as it is being played. Another 

 feature is an automatic oiling device 

 which deposits one drop of oil in every 

 important bearing at the necessary inter- 

 vals. Small storage vaults for records, 

 making the disks convenient of access, 

 round out an apparatus that gives us an 

 inkling of what the phonograph of one 

 hundred years from to-day may resemble. 

 At any rate most 

 of us are innately 

 lazy, so we at least 

 think kindly of this 

 inventor. 



w 



This phonograph does everything but pro- 

 vide the smokes and drinks for the company 



The Desert Dry ? 

 Read This 



'OULD you 

 believe that 

 the air in an aver- 

 age schoolroom is 

 drier than the air in 

 the deserts? That 

 is w'hat recent tests 

 indicated. How- 

 ever, there is noth- 

 ing to be alarmed 

 over, as the drying 

 power of air does not depend so much on 

 its humidity as on its being in motion. An 

 interesting illustration of this is furnished 

 by the fact that the air in a room which is 

 fan ventilated and artificially humidified 

 has greater drying power than the air in a 

 naturally ventilated and humidified room. 



been incorporated which fol- 



Here is an anomaly 

 — an honest dice 

 box. Is it possible? 



Come Seven! Come Eleven." 

 Honest Deal Always 



HONESTY in the manipula- 

 tion of the dice is assured 

 by a new dice box provided 

 with a conical bottom and 

 spiral ridges around the inside 

 walls, as these make it im- 

 possible for the player to pre- 

 vent the dice from turning over 

 at every throw. The box i.5 

 moulded from one piece of 

 tough but flexible leather so 

 that dice with the finest sur- 

 faces are not injured. The box 

 is also practically untearablo 

 and unbreakable and outwears 

 the average dice cup. 



