918 



Popular Science Monthly 



The fumes of the volatile liquid are forced into the open- 

 ings of the tunnels and kill every ground squirrel in them 



Making a Gas Attack on the Pesky 

 Ground Squirrel 



FULLY a score of men, each carrying a 

 mysterious long-handled container 

 resembling a churn with an end of hose 

 attached, have reached the field. They 

 do not march in close formation, but 

 scatter in every direction, apparently in 

 search of something. First one then an- 

 other stops, puts down his churn, fumbles 

 with the hose and then grips the handle of 

 his churn and begins to 

 work it up and down like 

 the handle of a bicycle 

 pump. What are these men 

 doing and why are they 

 doing it? Is this war? — 

 Yes, it is war — not against 

 a nation, however, but 

 against the ground squir- 

 rel, feared because of its 

 destructiveness and be- 

 cause it is known to be a 

 carrier of the germs of the 

 bubonic plague and other 

 diseases. 



Under the direction of 

 the United States Public 

 Health Service these men 

 are sent out to extermi- 

 nate the ground squirrels 

 by pumping the fumes of 

 carbon disulphide, a high- 



Iv volatile and inflamma- I*!' 'MTr'J^nfmT 



- , the old servmg mal- 



ble liquid, into the tunnels i^t and his improved 



dug by the squirrels. substitute for same 



Saving Time in Insulat- 

 ing Electric Cables 



EVERY motion picture 

 studio uses hundreds of 

 yards of electric cable. It is 

 important that the cable 

 shall not be damaged when 

 it is walked on or when a 

 truck should run over it. 

 Electric cables are therefore 

 wrapped to protect them — • 

 an expensive business. To 

 simplify and cheapen the 

 process, William T. Kearns, 

 mechanical superintendent 

 of the Balboa Motion Pic- 

 ture Company, has invented 

 a clever de\dce. 



Kearn's invention consists 

 of a reel attachment for a serving marlin. 

 A reel of twine is held in a metal frame and 

 the twine is wound off the reel around a 

 marlin onto the cable. The marlin is 

 nothing more than a wooden mallet 

 grooved to fit against the cable, and the 

 frame holding the spool of twine is fast- 

 ened upon the handle of this marlin. 

 The device makes it possible to bind the 

 twine tightly on the cable. 



The device saves labor. In the older and 

 more tedious method, one man didthe wrap- 



ping while another 



passed the twine 

 around the cable. 

 With this device one 

 man does both. 



This picture shows 

 how the new serving 

 reel is used for winding 

 a cable by one man 



