Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/610

This page needs to be proofread.

504 Popular Science Monthly

Seen from Above, This Picture Would We Are Presenting Germany with Look Different Two Hundred Aviators a Year

��AS C E N E like the above, wherein two Vita- graph comedians leap fifteen feet across an alley, can- not fail to give us a slight gasp. Well, how do they do it? Listen.

If you were up above the explana- tion would stare you in the face. For these laughable gen- tlemen would not be half so laugh- able if they were making the jump with nothing but their own two legs. As a matter of fact they are working under ideal condi- tions, precisely as if they were in a gymnasium. On one side is a springboard; on the other a spring mattress. It's a cheap thrill at only fifteen feet!

���THE Germans claim to have brought down a thousand Allied airplanes during the past twelve months. It is esti- mated that with lietter physical training a fifth of these need not have been lost. As the training and equipment of these men would cost about $3,500,- 000, according to Alan R. Hawley, President of the Aero Club of America, apart from the inestima- ble value of the men themselves, it would seem that we are paying rather dear for lack of atten- tion to physical fitness. The men will never" admit "staleness" though, for any reason.

��Those daredevil movie actors — with a mattress and springboard

��Whale's Tail-Bones i.Iade Into an Attractive Sign

THE Coronado Islands, off the coast of Lower California, not far from San Diego, have always attracted tour- ists because of the great numbers of whales, sea elephants, sea lions, and other large aquatic creatures, that disport themselves off the rocky shores. Taking advantage of these natural conditions, a a boat company of San Diego attracts the attention of tourists to its docks by means of a sign painted on the great tail-bones of a defunct whale.

The broad flat bone forming the end of the tail makes the sign board, while the three other vertebrae form a convenient stand to support it.

It is doubtful if any sign more instantly commands the attention. The bones were brought in by one of the company's boats from the surrounding beaches.

�� ��i^^

��^ Submarine GARor--'^

���SEAL

���This curious advertising sign is made from the tail-bones of a whale. Compare the glove

�� �