Popular Science Monthly 



393 



Paddle Your Own Canoe— But Do 

 It Mechanically 



VENICE, in California, gets its name 

 from its resemblance to Venice in 

 Italy. Its streets are canals, and everybody 

 travels about in boats. Ralph Johnson, a 

 thirteen-year-old resident of the town, 

 had a "cranky" little canoe that 

 ! c built at home in his base- 

 ment workshop. The craft is 

 but ten feet in length, but 

 wielding a paddle is slow, 

 back-breaking, laborious busi- 

 ness. So Ralph secured an old 

 bicycle rear hub and con- 

 verted it into, a neat four- 

 bladed paddle-wheel. The 

 wheel was then mounted on 

 wooden forks, and securely 

 bolted over the rear deck of 

 the canoe. Three bicycle 

 chains were stretched be- 

 tween the sprocket of the 

 paddle-wheel and a bicycle- 

 crank hanger mounted in the 

 cockpit athwart the gunwales. 

 'I he pedal was removed from 

 the crank-hanger and a handle substituted. 

 The tiny craft was also fitted with a rudder, 

 which, by wire controls, is operated from 

 left to right by the forward or backward 

 movement of a lever convenient to the 

 lad's left hand. 



Instead of bending over a paddle, Ralph 

 now cruises about, turning the crank in the 

 cockpit of his boat as easily as he would 

 operate a hand organ. With his left hand 

 he steers with the rudder. Instead of 

 laboring along at four miles an hour, 

 he now travels at the rate of eight miles 

 an hour with less effort. 



Ralph propels his boat by turning a crank in the cockpit. 

 With his left hand he keeps the boat on its course 



A bloody finish with the revolver machine- 

 guns. At right: Detail of the attachment 



Close-up Fighting with the 

 Revolver Machine- Gun 



AN Englishman, Charles J. 

 Cooke, has invented a new 

 magazine attachment for the auto- 

 matic revolver. 



The attachment is simply a holder 

 which enables a number of stored maga- 

 zines to be fed into the revolver as 

 fast as they are needed. Such an "auto- 

 matic" as the Colt .45 is pushed into the 

 saddle on the upper end of the holder. 

 When the eight shots have been fired, the 

 usual ejecting spring is 

 pressed; the empty maga- 

 zine drops from the gun 

 down into the slot in the 

 holder, and is ejected. In- 

 stantly, one of the full 

 magazines held in readiness 

 in the bottom of the holder 

 is pushed up into place. 

 When this magazine is ex- 

 hausted, the two others can 

 be fed into the hollow end 

 of the revolver. A bayonet 

 is placed on the lower end 

 for hand-to-hand fighting. 



The length of such an at- 

 tachment would be slightly 

 over twelve inches. 



