PATENTS ~ Nutty or Novel?

 

Just Something Interesting

 

Believe it or not, every device illustrated on these pages has been granted a patent by the government. Nutty or Novel — which?

 

Air-Filled Balloons Salvage Sunken Ships

 

 

SEEKERS after sunken Spanish galleons loaded with pieces of eight will have to equip themselves with balloons in addition to horse pistols, cutlasses, and other piratical impedimenta if they are to be strictly up-to-date in the matter of ship salvaging. The drawing at the left, taken from patent office records, shows how one inventor proposes to raise sunken ships by hooking deflated balloons into the rigging. When air is blown into the balloons through the tubes the buoyancy thus gained is expected to send the wreck shooting to the surface, and there you are. All you have to do is tow the ship to port, cash in on your work, and go out again to repeat the performance. Of course, if a school of swordfish should happen along and puncture the balloons the ship would sink to the bottom again.

 

Novel One-Wheeled Vehicle Propelled by Hand Crank

 

 

“Over the hill and down the dale we go, on a unicycle built for one”— or words to that effect. The new idea for individual transportation at low cost, shown in the drawings below, has been patented by its inventor. If one gets tired of whirling along in the wheel for relaxation, it is easy for the driver to sell his services to sportsmen who would like to have their tennis courts flattened out under a good roller. A study of the patent drawing, shown in the insert, shows how motion is accomplished. The gentleman in the driver’s seat seems to have but one leg, no eye at all, and a mustache whose delicate curl must require his constant attention.

 

Glass Cubes Preserve Departed Ancestors

 

 

CEMETERIES will be as out of date as yesterday’s newspaper if the inventor of this idea for pouring glass over the dead, illustrated above, succeeds in convincing the public that a nice rectangle of cut glass is what the well dressed corpse will wear. Presumably the glass can be tinted in shades of pink, green or lavender to suit the personality of the deceased. When a sufficient number of relatives have passed on and have been properly glassed in, a very attractive gallery of ancestors can be arranged in the basement, along the front porch, or in an odd corner of the attic. Visitors can be admitted at the discretion of proprietors of the museum, and if the family is so fortunate as to own a well-known murderer in its collection, a neat sum can be collected by selling tickets of admission at a modest fee. Visiting children, however, must be carefully warned not to chip the glass by throwing stones and other missiles.

 

Luminous Cat Picture Frightens Timid Mice

 

 

INSTEAD of laying out money for cheese and traps, the housewife who wants to rid her home of mice can secure a life size picture of a cat which is covered with a luminous substance guaranteed to scare a mouse out of a week’s growth. Once the cat pictures have been placed in strategic spots through the house, a mouse exodus which would delight the Pied Piper of Hamelin is bound to follow—little mice, big mice, and in-between mice treading on each other’s heels in their eagerness to get away from there.

 

Skull Marker for Poison Liquor

 

 

DESIGNED especially to warn grandpa that he has grabbed the carbolic acid instead of mouth wash when he reaches for a bottle in a darkened medicine chest, the skull-shaped container pictured at the left is also an appropriate bottle for bootleggers to use in delivering their product, some of which is reported to react on the human system in much the same way as prussic acid. With its touching reminder of what you will look like if you drink its poisonous contents, the skull bottle has been granted a patent by the government as a safety aid, the idea being that you will stop, look and listen when you uncork the skeleton in your closet. The bottle can also be used to scare the children when they are misbehaving.