Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/552

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536

��Popular Science Monthly

���It is geared to the shafting by means of a silent chain drive. The gener- ator and pump are driven from the shaft by an ordinary belt system. The lights, more than a hundred in all, are supplied by direct current without the necessity of storage bat- teries. However, there is a surplus of lights, so that in the near future both water wheel and fountain are to be illuminated at night. Under the waterfall and dam is a milk house.

��A modern water wheel placed on an ancient mill site furnishes current for one hundred electric lights

��The mechanism of the electric - generating sys- tem. The wheel develops about ten horsepower

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��His Lighting Bill Is Twenty-Five Cents a Month

AN old water wheel on the estate of Ji\ Frank B. Moore, at Trenton, N. J., is made to run an electric light plant and to pump water for three acres of trucking ground at an ap- proximate expense of twenty-five cents per month for lubricat ing oil — the water doing the rest.

The property now oc cupied by Mr. Moore was formerly a deserted mill site. The old stone residence was erected in 1775. The miniature mill seen in the illustration is built on the old mill site, the lower floor being used as a pumping sta- tion, machine shop and garage, and the upper story as a recreation room.

The wheel is ten feet high and three feet wide. It is mounted on roller bearings and develops about ten horsepower.

���Testing the strength of the rubber in a hot water bottle. It was used in this case as a life rope without accident

��Maltreating a Rubber Water Bottle to Test Its Strength

the photograph shown below is thriller intended for the motion picture screen. It is merely a record of a test made by a rubber goods manufacturing com- pany to find out how much strain their hot water bottle would stand. First a girl was allowed to have fun with it after it had been filled with water, by using it as a punching bag. But she did not punch it about in the ordinary way. She wore metal "knuckles" such as the highwaymen in the dime novels use. After she had i tired herself out without af- fecting the bag in the least, she turned it over to four heavy - weights. Each of them took a corner and pulled with all his might. Still the bag held. Several tests were made but the final one was most excit- ing. The man who made it risked his life. He weighs one hundred and sixty pounds; but with only the bag as a rope he allowed himself to be pulled up from a window to the roof of the build- ing — and there was no accident to himself or to the bag: After this test the official "OK" was given without reserve.

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