Popular Science Monthly 



583 



Day Signals 



N.LS;orm 



S.E.Sion 



S.W.Storm 



N.W Storm 



Hurricane 

 or whole gale 



Night Signals 



Storm signals of U. S. Weather Bureau. The night signals 

 shown above are displayed only on the Great Lakes 



expected direction of the wind at the 

 beginning of the approaching storm. 



In the year 1909 an international com- 

 mission met in London to consider the 

 introduction of a uniform system of storm 

 signals for all countries. The system 

 eventually recommended consists of com- 

 binations of cones, as shown in the annexed 

 figure; but it will probably be many years 

 before the international signals come into 

 general use. 



At the present time some thirty or forty 

 systems of daytime storm signals are in use 

 in different parts of the world. The most 

 elaborate of these are found in the Far 

 East, and serve to indicate, not merely the 

 fact that a storm 

 threatens the place 

 where a signal is dis- 

 played, but the ex- 

 istence of a typhoon 

 anywhere in the 

 neighboring seas, its 

 location, and the di- 

 rection in which it is 

 moving. All this is 

 accomplished by 

 means of solid sym- 

 bols (cones, balls, 

 diamonds and 

 squares) displayed 

 at both ends of a 

 yard arm and at the 

 summit of a mast, in 

 a conspicuous .loca- 

 tion on the coast. 



T 



A sterilizer for cleaning and thoroughly 

 disinfecting the clothes of French soldiers 

 when they return from the trenches 



A Huge Clothing Sterilizer on 

 Wheels for the Armies 



HE barber's eternal question, "Hot 

 towel, sir?" is answered in a novel way 

 in France just now. A giant sterilizer on 

 wheels takes care of the towels and other 

 articles of the men who return from the 

 fighting front and puts them through a 

 steam bath which both cleans and disinfects 

 them. Thus the spread of disease is 

 prevented. 



However, France does not keep her 

 sterilizers at home. She sends them di- 

 rectly back of the first-line trenches in 

 villages where the troops are permitted to 

 bathe occasionally. 



From the photo- 

 graph it will be seen 

 that the larger tank 

 of the two is the 

 steam chamber, 

 while the smaller 

 tank contains water. 

 The water is heated 

 by gasoline or kero- 

 sene. The steriliz- 

 ing chamber is large 

 enough to accommo- 

 date nearly a hun- 

 dred soldiers' suits. 

 It takes about an 

 hour to thoroughly 

 clean a uniform, but 

 proportionately less 

 for towels. 



