112 



Popular Science Monthly 



To the right is shown a tire which is worn out as 

 it should wear out after journeying 10,000 miles; 

 to the left a tire which has been worn away and 

 some of the fabric material broken by skidding 



and the trans- 

 verse forces applied 

 by the act of steer- 

 ing. Above all, it 

 must act as a shock 

 absorber, thereby 

 protecting the en- 

 gine and other parts 

 of the car so that 

 they may perform 

 their work efficient- 

 ly, protect the en- 

 tire structure so 

 that it may ride 

 easily and safely. 

 Despite all the 

 tales that we- hear 

 of tire costs and tire 

 repairs, let it not be 

 forgotten that auto- 

 mobiling as we 

 know it, became 

 possible only be- 

 cause the pneumatic 

 tire was invented. 



What ''Balance'' Means in a Tire 

 In order that you may be able to cope 

 adequately and intelligently with the 

 strains and stresses to which a tire is sub- 

 jected and all the obstacles which it must 

 overcome, the manufacturer has made the 

 tire so that it is, what he calls, well 

 balanced. In other words, he wants it to 

 wear out in all parts at the same time — an 

 ideal which he never quite attains. It 

 would obviously be foolish to provide a 

 tread so excellent that much of it would be 

 left after the carcass had failed. It would 

 be equally foolish to provide side walls 

 which would outlast everything else. To 

 balance a tire, experience is necessary. 

 Defect after defect is removed as it appears. 

 Ultimately, a tire is obtained which, if 

 handled properly, will wear out uniformly. 

 Remember that a tire is the most paradoxi- 

 cal construction in the entire field of auto- 

 mobile engineering. It seems ridiculous to 

 use a substance which is so tender as 

 rubber and yet, if we had no air-inflated 

 rubber tire, there would be no modern, 

 luxuriously comfortable automobile. What- 

 ever its defects may be, the rubber tire is 

 an astonishing construction. It must resist 

 the entire air pressure to which it is sub- 

 jected, the weight of the automobile and 

 its load, the thrust of the motor, the 

 reverse strain set up when the brakes are 

 applied, the blows of thousands of pebbles 

 and obstructions against the inner air. 



Will the Beefsteaks of the Future 

 Be a Product of the Sea? 



CONSIDERING the rapidly decreasing 

 acerage which commerce and agri- 

 culture allow to pasture lands together 

 with the soaring prices of almost every kind 

 of food, it does not require a very fertile 

 imagination to conceive of a time when 

 meat will be a luxury for the table of 

 crowned heads and uncrowned capitalists, 

 unless the ever-resourceful commoner, 

 seized with a realization that three-fourths 

 of the surface of the earth is water and prac- 

 tically a waste as far as production of varie- 

 ties of diet are concerned, should re-discover 

 that the mammals of the sea are worthy of 

 cultivation as food. 



It is estimated that the meat of one sixty- 

 foot whale, for instance, is equal to that of 

 seventy head of cattle and tastes like 

 choicest beefsteak in flavor, when properly 

 prepared. 



Other marine mammals which are good 

 for food as well as for commercial purposes 

 are the seal, the walrus, the dugong and the 

 sea cow. The dugong has always been 

 prized for food by Asiatics, Africans and 

 Australians, and the sea cow formerly found 

 in the waters of the Bering Sea, was so 

 noted for the palatableness of its flesh, its 

 size and for its gentle fearlessness of man 

 that it has been almost entirely extermi- 

 nated through man's greed. 



