Popular Science Monthly 



379 



the motors on a trailer. It then auto- 

 matically starts up at full speed of nine 

 hundred revolutions a minute. When the 

 electricity is switched off, the speed is 

 again automatically reduced. The driver 

 has no control over the operation of the 

 gasoline engine. He controls the elec- 

 tric current alone. The value of this is 

 that the power machinery is made more 

 nearly "fool-proof." A less skilled man 

 may be employed to run the machine, for 

 the job consists simply in steering it, 

 switching on and off the electricity and 

 applying the brakes when necessary. The 

 machines cannot be run above eisrht miles 



A crew of five 

 men accompany 

 these great trac- 

 tors, and refuse 

 is emptied into 

 their ample bod- 

 ies with great 

 rapidity. The 

 upper trays re- 

 ceive barrels, 

 boxes and pa- 

 pers, and the 

 lower sections 

 the ashes and 

 garbage 



Cn the piers the re- 

 fuse is discharged in- 

 to barges by locomo- 

 tive cranes which 

 take their power from 

 a third-rail. The 

 various sections of 

 the trailer are lifted 

 bodily and their con- 

 tents dumped into 

 the barge. The 

 rapidity of operation 

 and the fewer men 

 employed actually 

 reduce the cost of 

 the work 



an hour on an ordinary level paved street. 

 The refuse trailers, which have al- 

 ready been placed in operation, consist 

 of a massive steel- frame arranged to 

 carry a series of eight deep rectangular 

 steel cans, and, resting on top of these, 

 two big trays for barrels and boxes. In 

 the sides of these big trays are rectan- 

 gular openings by which the ashes, street 

 sweepings and garbage can be thrust into 

 the cans underneath. These openings 



are closed l^y swinging steel doors 

 horizontally hung so that the 

 pressure of an ash can or a shovel 

 will open them, and gravity will 

 close them instantly when the 

 pressure is removed. 



On the piers where the refuse 

 is discharged into the barges are 

 four locomotive cranes taking 

 their power from a third rail. The 

 various sections of the collecting 

 trailer are lifted bodily and their 

 contents dumped on to the barge. 

 Twelve of the tractors and refuse trail- 

 ers are now in operation, and the crew 

 of five men go through a block with 

 a speed and resultant cleanliness marvel- 

 ous to the eyes of New Yorkers accus- 

 tomed to the antiquated methods in use 

 elsewhere in the city. 



o 



NLY ten per cent, of the in- 

 habitants of the Phillipines speak 

 Spanish. 



