60 



Popular Science Monthly 



Press a button in the door-knob and 

 a lamp near the keyhole flashes up 



Finding the Keyhole at Night. Press 

 a Button and a Light is Made 



SOME people, on certain dire occasions 

 in the small hours of the morning, find 

 it difficult to locate the keyhole of 

 their door. An Ohio inventor, however, 

 has come to their rescue with a device for 

 luring the latchkey to the proper place. 

 He accomplishes this with an 

 arrangement which provides for 

 the placing of an electric light 

 pointing geometrically toward 

 the keyhole. The light has a 

 reflector attached to it which 

 further intensifies its illumina- 

 tion. The connections to the 

 light are made through a 

 push-button which has been 

 thoughtfully fitted directly 

 into the door-knob. From 

 the push-button, the wires 

 lead to the batteries through 

 contacts between the door 

 and the door-sill. Push the 

 button and the circuit is 

 closed and the lamp lighted. 

 Combined with this is 

 an alarm which is so con- 

 nected with the door-lock 

 that as "^soon as the key is 

 placed in it, the alarm goes 

 of^, arousing the household. 



How They Wash Clothes with the Help 

 of the Wind in Alaska 



IN Alaska and throughout the more or 

 less frozen North, laundresses are prac- 

 tically unknown. The miners do their 

 own housekeeping, and their own launder- 

 ing. The accompanying illustration shows 

 a device which one of them constructed as a 

 substitute for the washboard and tub. It 

 is made of an old barrel-churn mounted on 

 runners so that the miner can take it along 

 to his work, 



A cylinder about thirty inches long and 

 of the same diameter as the head of the 

 churn was first constructed of heavy 

 galvanized iron. One end of this cylinder 

 was left open, and the head of the churn 

 was fastened to the open end. The cylin- 

 der was then carefully balanced in the 

 churn, and the churn-bearings were fast- 

 ened on with rivets and solder to make 

 them watertight. 



Two screens of galvanized wire of one- 

 inch mesh were made. One of them was 

 suspended from the movable head by one- 

 quarter-inch galvanized iron rods, and the 

 other was fastened to the cylinder, so that 

 the two were about ten inches apart in the 

 middle of the cylinder. The clothes are 

 confined between the two screens. The 

 water surges back and forth through them 

 until they are clean, or as long as the 

 churn is in motion. A large pin-wheel 

 attached to the bearings furnishes the 

 turning power. 



The miner leaves the 

 machine in an exposed 

 position and lets the 

 wind do his washing 



