s g)5^ — — — E^^SVP 



f 



TRAVELLING BAGS. 3G5 



made without iron frames, or may be made in moulds like hollow- 

 ware. When made wholly of gum-elastic materials, being water 

 and air-tight, they are equally useful in proportion to their size 

 for life-preservers, and are more readily kept at hand. 



WATER- AND AIR-PROOF HAT AND BONNET BOXES. 



The improvements which have been suggested for the manu- 

 facture of trunks and valises, are equally applicable to hat and 

 bonnet boxes, and the same advantages may be derived from 

 their use in the same way. For no article is a cheap and sub- 

 stantia] water-proof substance, instead, of paper, more needed 

 than for band-boxes. For this purpose India rubber whalebone 

 or whalebone board is unquestionably the thing required. 



TRAVELING BAGS. 



See Chapter , — Traveling Apparatus. 



LIFE-PRESERVING TRAVELING BAGS. 



There are different ways of securing all the mouths of the 

 water-proof bags that are noticed in this work, so as to make 

 them air-tight, in which case they may, any of them, be used as 

 life-preservers. The kinds which are most safe, and are most 

 highly approved, are of very nearly the same construction as 

 the one noticed as an improved traveling bag, page 350. They 

 are made more complete by an improvement on the slide fasten- 

 ing, by the addition of two or more clamps, with thumb screws. 

 There is also a self-acting valve tube cemented in this bag, by 



