54 



Popular Science Monthly 



A Brush Which Clears the Way for the 

 Phonograph Needle 



DO YOU really clean your 

 phonograph records 

 when you rub them off with 

 a cloth? Doesn't the rub- 

 bing compress some of the 

 dust into the grooves? 



Arthur Herrman, of New 

 York city, thinks so. He 

 has taken an ordinary brush 

 and has attached it to the 

 sound box in such a way as 

 to dislodge all dust from 

 the groove just before the 

 needle reaches that particu- 

 lar portion of the groove. 



His sweeper is composed 

 of stiff bristles. It may be 

 swung to an inactive position out of en- 

 gagement with the record by turning it 

 on its swivel connection. It is adapted for 

 the playing of records having hill-and-dale 

 or laterally cut grooves. 



The sweeper is clamped to the 

 sound box and is moved along 

 just in front of the needle 



Doing Away with the Pick and Shovel 

 in Excavations 



UNTIL recently there were only two 

 methods of excavating and handling 

 dirt, stone and gravel. The one was by 

 means of the pick and shovel, which is 

 both expensive and slow. The other was 

 by means of the steam shovel, which, while 

 cheaper and quicker than the first way, 



10(1 u ires a large original purchasing outlay. 

 To provide a happy medium, 

 John Albrecht invented this ex- 

 cavator and loader. 



The machine consists of a 

 scraper and a loading plat- 

 form. The scraper is of 

 steel and scrapes up the 

 dirt or gravel and carries it 

 to the loading platform. 

 It is pulled back and forth 

 over the ground by a steel 

 cable. A man guides it by 

 two wooden handles. When 

 the scraper reaches the 

 platform it is full of dirt 

 and ready to be dumped 

 into a wagon. To do this 

 it is drawn onto a skip, or 

 steel box with only three sides. The skip 

 is then lifted till it holds the scraper direct- 

 ly over a shute down which the dirt slides 

 into the waiting wagon. 



The machine is run by an electric motor 

 and needs only two men to operate it, 

 one to run the motor and the other to 

 steer the scraper. When this excavator is 

 used the wagons are loaded with dirt on 

 the street instead of having to be driven 

 into the excavation to be loaded, which 

 would necessitate an extra team of horses 

 to pull them out. In this way the great 

 gap between the expensive steam shovel 

 and the old hand method is bridged. 



The machine consists of a loading platform and a scraper, which, when filled with dirt, 

 is drawn up on a three-sided steel box which dumps the dirt into the waiting wagon 



