Popular Science Monthly 



851 



This New Motor-Truck Kitchen 

 Serves Meals to 2,000 Daily 



ANEW type of United States Army 

 steam field kitchen has just been de- 

 signed to furnish a battalion of 2,000 men 

 three hot meals a day. The new outfit is 

 mounted on a four-ton motor truck to en- 

 able it to accompany the troops on marches 

 and even move ahead of them so that their 

 meals will be ready when they halt for the 

 noon lunch period or at night. 



The great capacity of the equipment is 

 its principal feature. This is directly at- 

 tributable to the use of a ten-horsepower 

 vertical boiler which furnishes live steam at 

 fifty pounds pressure to two fifty-gallon 

 coffee urns and two ninety-gallon stew, 

 soup or pot-roast kettles. The boiler 

 is arranged to burn coal, wood or oil, 

 and the kettles and urns are of the steam- 

 jacketed type which can raise water from 

 62 degrees Fahrenheit to 212 degrees in 

 six minutes. 



The kitchen can be run by two cooks 

 and the motor truck driver. The outfit 

 and these three men replace twenty of the 

 ordinary army field 

 kitchens which require 

 eighty men and forty 

 horses or mules for their 

 operation, and are slow- 

 moving as well as lack- 

 ing in facilities for serv- 

 ing quick meals in large 

 quantities. 



The new outfit is the 

 invention of J. C. LaVin, 

 manager of the Hotel 

 Taft, New Haven, Conn., 

 and is known as the 

 Taft army kitchen. 



Some of the Eccentricities of a 

 Sleeping Horse 



HORSES seldom lie down to sleep. 

 Throughout their entire lives most 

 of them sleep while standing on their feet. 

 The reason for this is believed to be that 

 the horses are afraid that an insect might 

 crawl into their nostrils. This is a very 

 likely explanation when we consider that a 

 horse's nostrils- are the most sensitive part 

 of his body. If the insect could not be 

 removed, it could easily irritate a horse 

 to death. Many horses will not lie down 

 because they have once been "foundered," 

 that is, unable to get up unassisted. 



Another curious fact about a sleeping 

 horse is that he seems always to keep 

 his faculties working. His ears, for in- 

 stance, keep constantly twitching and he 

 seems to hear the slightest noise. Because 

 of this, it would probably be impossible 

 for a man to enter a stable quietly enough 

 to prevent his waking up every horse in it. 

 Horses act peculiarly also in time of fire. 

 They ^^ will burn to death rather 

 t h a n I I rush out from the stalls. 



The boiler of the motor 

 field kitchen is arranged 

 to be run by coal, wood or 

 oil. Three men operate 

 the entire apparatus 



The great ten-horsepower 

 vertical boiler furnishes 

 live steam to two fifty- 

 gallon coffee pots and two 

 ninety-gallon soup kettles 



