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Popular Science Monthly 



Soldering-iron Has New Principle 



AN electric soldering-iron which heats 

 the object to be soldered only at 

 the actual point of contact, thereby 

 doing away with much of the loss of heat 



A Room Papered with Postage Stamps 



WITHIN easy walking distance of 

 the old cathedral town of Chi- 

 chester, England, is the "Rising Sun," in 

 North Bersted, a house of interest to all 

 who collect stamps. This small inn 

 contains a room every inch of which is 

 covered with postage stamps. Ceiling, 

 walls, doors, chairs, tables, picture 

 frames, every part of the room, except 

 the floor, is thickly covered, while from 

 the ceiling hang long festoons and ropes, 

 made of bundles of stamps for which there 

 is no other place. Fully two million 

 stamps are pasted up, and a million more 

 hang in the festoons. Great bundles, one 

 of which contains sixty thousand stamps, 

 hang among the heav}^ loops. 



To obviate loss of heat by radiation, this 



soldering-iron has been invented. It heats 



the object to be soldered only at the point 



of direct contact 



by radiation in the old-fashioned iron, 

 has been put on the market for work of 

 all kinds. The iron, which 

 is made in various sizes, is 

 connected with a step-down 

 transformer. 



Heat for soldering is gen- 

 erated by the resistance of 

 carbon or carborundum con- 

 tacts against which the ob- 

 ject to be soldered is placed. 

 The other contact, through 

 which the current flows, is 

 metal and will heat but 

 slightly. No current is used 

 until the object to be sol- 

 dered is placed between the 

 brass and the carbon con- 

 tacts. It is said that with 

 this new form of electric iron, 

 soldering can be done in 

 about half the usual time. 



Of all English inns the "Rising Sun" is the most 

 curious. It has a room, every inch of which is 

 covered with postage stamps — ceilings, doors, pic- 

 ture frames and tables. There are so many stamps 

 that some have to be disposed of in long festoons 

 and ropes, which hang from the ceiling 



