512 



Popular Science Monthly 



A new gun, so movmted that it can be fired at the 

 steepest angle. A perforated weight counterbalances it 



Shooting at Bird-Men with the 

 New French Guns 



IF you have 

 ever shot 

 ducks on the 

 wing with a 

 shot-gun, you 

 have experi- 

 enced some of 

 the difficul- 

 ties of the ar- 

 tillerymen 

 who handle 

 anti-aircraft 

 guns on Euro- 

 pean battle- 

 fields. Your 

 practiced 

 bird -shot 

 aims a little 

 ahead of his 

 prey. Beyond 

 this time 

 allowance, he 

 considers 

 nothing. He fires point-blank at his mark. 



And so it is with the man who fires 

 shrapnel at artificial birds soaring at a 

 height of a mile and more. His task is far 

 more difficult than that of the duck hunter. 

 The allowance which must be made for the 

 movement of the air-man and the time 

 required by the projectile to fulfill its 

 mission is not so easily gaged as it is with 

 a fowling piece on the ducking ground. 



Before the present war, not a single anti- 

 aircraft gun could be fired 

 point-blank at an aeroplane in 

 the air. The necessity of that 

 proceeding seemed so obvious 

 that I pointed it out more than 

 once before 1914. That it has 

 indeed become essential the 

 accompanying illustration 

 abundantly proves. Compared 

 with this well-constructed and 

 easily handled weapon the anti- 

 aircraft guns with which Euro- 

 pean armies were experiment- 

 ing before the war, seem ridicu- 

 lously awkward. They could 

 not be fired point-blank, for 

 example; they had to be 

 sighted around a corner, as it 

 were, inasmuch as the marks- 

 man had to keep his eye glued 

 on a reflecting prism. It was 

 necessary to find the range and 

 therefore to lose valuable 



seconds — something which is altogether 

 unnecessary in point-blank firing. 



The gun 

 pictured, a 

 French de- 

 sign, is so 

 mounted that 

 it can be fired 

 at the steep- 

 est angles. It 

 is so counter- 

 balanced 

 (note the 

 perforated 

 weight at the 

 right) that it 

 can be swung 

 about with 

 the utmost 

 ease. The 

 position of 

 the marks- 

 man shows 

 that he 

 sights as 

 directly as if he were manipulating a tele- 

 scope instead of a gun. — Carl Dienstbach. 



The hinged brackets 

 fit the sides of the 

 racket, holding it 

 rigidly straight 



A New Press for Preventing the Tennis 

 Racket from Warping 



TO prevent the wood of tennis rackets 

 from warping, a press is used consist- 

 ing of perfectly straight brackets clamped 

 on the racket when it is not in use. The 

 brackets generally used to-day, however, 

 require considerable adjustment to 

 clamp them properly. They consist 

 of a pair of trapezoidal pieces 

 of well-seasoned wood which 

 are held flat against the rack- 

 et on either face by four 

 wing-nuts" which clamp them 

 down and which must be 

 screwed to exactly the same 

 tension. 



A far simpler bracket has 

 been invented by Fred Ricords, 

 of Brooklyn, New York. In- 

 stead of face brackets, two side 

 brackets semi-elliptical in 

 shape are used. They take the 

 contour of the sides of the 

 racket when closed together. 

 The brackets .are made per- 

 fectly straight longitudinally, 

 and when they are fitted or 

 the sides, they hold the wooc 

 so that it cannot warp. 



