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Popular Science Monthly 



Put These Webbed Gloves on and The Small Caterpillar Tractor Rings the 

 Swim Like a Duck Death Knell of the Industrial Railroad 



HOW would you like to be able to swim 

 as fast as a duck, and with as little 

 effort, with webbed hands and feet to 

 push your way through water ? 

 It is not at all impossible, now 

 that Dr. A. Kandor Zawadski, 

 of Honolulu, has invented 

 his swimming glove. As 

 the accompanying photo- 

 graph shows, the 

 webbed glove makes a 

 veritable duck's foot 

 out of the human 

 hand. When swim- 

 ming, the gloved 

 hand is spread out 

 at each backward 

 stroke and closed each 

 time the hand is drawn 

 forward. According to 

 the inventor, a swim- 

 mer equipped with the 

 duck-like hands can not 

 only outdistance other 

 swimmers but the hands 

 enable him to stay up 

 for hours with slight 

 exertion. 



The swimming glove, made for both 

 hand and foot, is webbed like a duck's 

 foot and will keep the swimmer afloat 



Statistically, What Is Your Chance of 

 Being Killed in This War? 



IF you, a drafted man, believe that sta- 

 tistics tell the truth, you will feel as 

 safe in France as you usually do in the 

 streets of New York. So says Roger W. 

 Babson, the eminent statis- 

 tician. Furthermore, he says 

 that the man who is connect- 

 ed with the heavy field artil- 

 lery is no more likely to be 

 killed than one in the employ 

 of a railroad. However, he 

 does not hold out such high 

 hopes for the lieutenants, 

 sergeants- and corporals, the 

 death rate being very much 

 greater among officers than 

 among privates. Also, the 

 mortality is higher among 

 volunteer corps than among 

 drafted men. Sixty men per 

 thousand are now being killed 

 in the war, and about one 

 hundred and fifty men out of 

 each thousand are wounded. 



A SMALL tractor of the conventional 

 caterpillar type which is designed as 

 a substitute for the narrow-gage industrial 

 railroads operated in connection 

 with large plants, has recently 

 made its appearance. It can 

 move material rapidly from 

 one department of a fac- 

 tory to another and pass 

 obstacles, since it does 

 ^ not require roads 

 or tracks for its 

 operation. Further- 

 more, it does not 

 mar the surface over 

 which it passes, be- 

 cause it lays its own 

 track as it goes along. 

 For this reason it can 

 be used inside factory 

 buildings. It can pass 

 through doorways of the 

 ordinary size, and when 

 not used in transporting 

 material from one de- 

 partment to another, it 

 can be employed in the 

 shipping room or on the 

 loading platform. It is 

 but fifty inches wide and 

 fifty-two inches high. 



There are any number of other uses to 

 which the industrial tractor may be put. 

 For instance, it can be employed for pulling 

 loaded wagons out of excavations, or it can 

 be used in logging camps, or in lumber 

 yards, mines, and shipyards. 



The new caterpillar tractor adapted for commercial use in 

 manufacturing plants. It can be used inside and outside a 

 building and as a substitute for the industrial railroad 



