THE “SCURIMOBILE.”
THE SCURIMOBILE.
The peculiar gun shown in the [cut] is named after its inventor, Alessandro Scuri, of Liège, Belgium. M. Scuri is also known as the inventor of a unicycle and a quadruple cornet. The “scurimobile” is a gun with two barrels which can be aimed at different objects, the angle between the barrels being adjustable. The adjustment is effected by moving a ring located on the under side of the gun. The pivot of the barrels is so arranged that it is easy to sight two objects at the same time. Both cartridges are automatically ejected after each shot fired. It is also possible to use only one barrel in the ordinary way. In the [cut] the inventor is shown aiming at two balls placed about a yard apart. Another valuable feature of this new gun is its applicability as a range finder. The observer first sights two objects which are at about equal distances from him, and measures the distance or angle between the two barrels, a graduation being provided for this purpose. Then the same operation is made from a point more distant from the objects first sighted. If the observer steps back ten yards, and finds that the graduation indicates just one-half of the value obtained at first, he will know that in the second position he was just twice as far from the objects as in the first position, so that the objects are ten yards from the observer’s first position. This operation will give distances with sufficient accuracy in most cases, but more exact results can be obtained by means of a simple trigonometric formula when the angle between the barrels is measured.
“THE NEOÖCCULTISM.”
The X rays, after becoming the indispensable coadjutors of surgeons, and even of physicians, are now competing with the most noted mediums in the domain of the marvelous.
M. Radiguet, the well known manufacturer of physical apparatus, has been devoting himself for a long time to experiments with the Roentgen rays in the laboratory, which is encumbered with electric lamps, lamp globes, and glass apparatus of all kinds. One day he perceived that these glass objects, under the action of the X rays, shone in the darkness. Here again was an amusing and perhaps a useful experiment due to accident. Useful, because the radiographs obtained up to the present, by means of artificial screens, have been really good only when the sensitive bodies have been in small crystals. In a pulverulent state they are nearly insensible to the X rays, and it is almost impossible to obtain the grain of the screen upon the photographic plate. It is easy, on the contrary, to work the glass in such a way as to prevent any irregularity in the radiograph. Such experiments will certainly be made ere long, but, for the present, it is the fantastic side of the discovery that we shall present to our readers.