Popular Science Monthly 



It Stormed; So the Funeral 



Was Conducted by 



Telephone 



FROM Wisconsin comes 

 the report of a funeral 

 by telephone. A Methodist 

 minister, of Oakfield, died 

 and his bishop was to deliver 

 the funeral sermon. But a 

 severe storm came on and 

 the bishop, who was on his 

 way, saw no chance of getting 

 to the village, since traffic was 

 stopped on the short branch 

 line leading to the place. 

 Stopping at a farmhouse to 

 telephone his predicament to 

 the waiting family, he decided 

 to conduct the service over 

 the telephone, one of the 

 members of the family re- 

 peating his words to the 

 mourners. 



Compressed air pumped into the cylinder rapidly vibrates 

 the cutting bar as would a short-stroke reciprocating engine 



The Last Word in Fountain Pen 

 Efficiency — An Eraser Attachment 



IF you should make a mistake while 

 writing, the fault is yours, not your 

 pen's. However, your pen may be made to 

 correct the mistake very neatly. Daniel R. 

 Markley, of Lancaster, Pa., has devised a 

 plan for attaching an eraser composed of 

 threads of spun glass to the top of the 

 barrel of any ordinary fountain pen. 



The spun-glass threads are encased 

 in a cup which is held in another 

 cup which screws on to the bar- 

 rel of the pen and is covered 

 by a cap resembling the 

 one which covers the pen. 

 The inner walls of the 

 cup holding the bristles, 

 or threads, converge at 

 the outer end so that 

 the bristles are held in 

 a compact little bunch, 

 as shown in the illus- 

 tration. As the bristles 

 at the end are worn away 

 the remaining lengths 

 may be fed through auto 

 matically by screwing the 

 cup further up. 



The addition of the 

 eraser does not alter the ap- 

 pearance of the fountain pen 

 in any other way than by 

 slightly increasing its length. 



Bristles of spun glass are fast- 

 ened in a cup threaded on the 

 barrel of the pen for an eraser 



Removing Iron Rivets with a Pneu- 

 matic Hammer 



THOUGH the pneumatic hammer has 

 long been used in structural steel work 

 to shape the heads on red-hot rivets, the 

 old hammer-and-bar methods are still used 

 in removing the rivets. A pneumatic 

 hammer has been invented, however, which 

 removes fifty times as many rivets in a 

 given time. 



In the time that one hammer 

 stroke can be given by a man, the 

 pneumatic hammer gives several 

 hundred. The long cutting 

 bar is attached to a piston 

 in a long cylinder. Air is 

 pumped to the cylinder 

 under pressure of one 

 hundred pounds per 

 square inch, and it im- 

 • mediately vibrates the 

 bar violently. When 

 the crew press the 

 hammer against a rivet, 

 the pounding knocks 

 the rivet's head off al- 

 most instantly. 



This method of cutting 

 is not only easier for the 

 men, but it saves seventy- 

 five per cent on the cost 

 of the hand method. More- 

 over, it can be used in ordi- 

 narily inaccessible places. 



