Popular Science Monthly 



707 



A Measuring Board Which Saves Time 

 and Calculations on Structural Work 



ABOARD which is the invention of 

 Otto Nielsen, of Brooklyn, New York, 

 contains two large scales, marked off in 

 feet and inches, which are pivoted to it. 

 One-foot squares are marked on the board, 

 and these are numbered, starting with the 

 point of pivot. These large squares are 

 subdivided into square inches, and again 

 into square eighth-inches, very accurately. 

 If the vertical and horizontal distances 

 between any two points on a com- 

 plex slanting member are desired, 

 it is necessary only to turn 

 the pivoted scale to the cor- 

 responding angle shown by 

 the board protractor. The 

 required distances are ob- 

 tainable at once by read- 

 ing the squares up to the 

 point on the pivoted scale 

 which corresponds to the 

 distance between the two 



points. ^^^^^^ WW A placard supplied 



Distances intricate to com- ^B ^W by the Navy to 



pute can be readily found by ^H 1 W h r g ^J^Z 



i • re i.L li • r 4.L \. 1/ of a house from 



laying off the outlines ot the ^^| ^^^ which a man 



structure on the board. ^^^^^^^^ gone to the war 



"A Man from This House Is Now 



Serving His Country" 



AVE you seen a new flag lately? You 



will find it flying from the windows 



the homes of both the rich and the 



poor. It is a red flag with a white panel 



the center. Sometimes the white panel 



has one blue star, sometimes more. The 



flag means that a man from the house it 



decorates has gone to the war. If it has 



one star you will know that one man 



from that family is serving, if two 



stars, two men have gone to the 



front. It is unusual to see a 



service flag displaying three stars 



as does the one in the photograph, 



but there are families entitled to 



more than three. One house, from 



which five sons enlisted, waves two 



two-star flags and one with one 



star. 



Another method of announcing 

 that a man from a certain house 

 is serving in the Navy is to hang 

 a placard in the window which 

 states, "A man from this house 

 is now serving his country at the 

 lines of an intricate structure, any distances can be read front in the United btates JNavy. 



