896 



Popular Science Monthly 



The "Torpedo Kid" was modeled after a 

 falling drop of oil 



An Electric Automobile Built 

 Like a Drop of Oil 



OUR present day pear-shaped racing 

 automobiles are all distant cousins, 

 so to speak, of the "Torpedo Kid," a 

 car designed by Walter C. Baker, the 

 creator of the first American-made 

 electric. In a dash at Ormonde Beach, 

 Florida, some years ago, it did a mile 

 in 56 seconds, establishing a world's 

 record for speed at that time. 



Oddly enough Mr. Baker came to be 

 the originator of the first pear or cigar- 

 shaped racer by studying the shape of a 

 drop of oil as it fell through the air. He 

 observed that the drop, while falling, 

 was not round but took the form of an 

 ellipse. In short time he arrived at the 

 conclusion that a solid body of the same 

 shape as the drop of oil, if cut in two 

 and built low to the ground, would offer 

 the least possible wind resistance. He 

 followed out this theory in the construc- 

 tion of the "Torpedo Kid," and its 

 initial record of a mile in 56 seconds 

 proved that Mr. Baker was right. 



Other automobile manufacturers were 

 quick to see the advantages of the 

 constructional features embodied in the 

 "Torpedo Kid," with the result that 

 pear-shaped racers, electrically and gas- 

 oline-propelled, began to dot the courses 

 of our race tracks. For a while the 

 electric racers held their own against 

 the others, but the gasoline engine 

 improved so rapidly that before long 

 the electric racer was as scarce as it was 

 before the heyday of the "Torpedo Kid." 

 However, Mr. Baker has built a larger 

 car along the same lines as his speediest 

 electric, and it is said to have made 

 one hundred and twenty miles an hour. 

 A few years ago it was entered in some 



races in France but before it could give 

 account of itself, it got beyond the 

 control of the driver and ran amuck, 

 injuring several bystanders. 



Signaling Three Hundred Miles 



A PORTABLE electric signal-light 

 which, although operated by dry- 

 cell batteries, gives two hundred and 

 fifty thousand candlepower, has been 

 designed and constructed by E. G. 

 Fisher, chief of the instrument division 

 of the United States Coast and Geo- 

 detic Survey. It is to be used during the 

 summer in the mountainous regions of 

 Idaho and Oregon on primary triangula- 

 tion where the distance between stations 

 is frequently as much as one hundred 

 miles. No larger than the ordinary 

 automobile head-light, the packed ap- 

 paratus weighs about twenty-three 

 pounds. Under ideal atmospheric condi- 

 tions the light will be visible through a 

 telescope of ordinary power for a distance 

 of two hundred and fifty to three hundred 

 miles. 



The great power of the light is due to 

 a new type of tungsten filament designed 

 by Mr. Fisher. The filament is concen- 

 trated so aS to confine the light to as 

 small a point as possible — very much as 

 in the gas-filled lamps now used for street- 

 lighting. There are two tiny coils of 

 filament about one tenth of an inch in 

 height and one thirty-second of an inch 

 in diameter, connected by a loop at the 

 top. The glass bulb is about two inches 

 in diameter. 



The light is about one hundred and 

 seventy times more powerful than that 

 given by the acetylene signal lamps 

 now being used by the survey. 



A specially constructed tungsten filament 

 enables this lamp to throw its rays a dis- 

 tance of three hundred miles 



