Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/278

Finding the exact location of a waterpipe between two buildings by means of a telepipe. The electric current is supplied by four dry batteries. The humming of the vibrator is the guide

You Can't See a Pipe Underground, But You Can Hear It

WHAT is a "telepipe?" It is an electrical device that tells you the location of a buried waterpipe, so that no time is wasted in digging over a large area to find it. The instrument is used for locating conduits, cables, I-beams and similar buried objects that are not more than twelve feet below the surface. The photograph shows clearly how it is operated.

The problem was to find the exact location of the waterpipe between the residence and the factory. This was done by attaching the terminals of the telepipe to the faucets in front of each building. This done, the operator with his portable outfit, known as the exploring coil, moved slowly over the area known to contain the pipe, listening with the receiver the instrument to his ear.

The humming tone of the vibrator was his guide. It was heard all through the area enclosed by the pipes in the circuit, except in one spot, which was directly above the buried pipe.

The current for the instrument is supplied by four dry batteries, and the entire outfit is easily carried. It weighs about twenty pounds.

Its principal advantage lies in the fact that it is very quickly and easily applied and operated, one man being capable of using it alone. When an underground break has occurred and the cellar is in danger of being flooded this feature will be appreciated.

The air was supplied to this emergency diver's helmet through an ordinary automobile pump

Making a Diving Helmet Out of a Kitchen Boiler

OUT of an ordinary kitchen boiler a Brooklyn engineer has devised a diving helmet which compares favorably with the expensive diver's suit. He took one end of a kitchen boiler and notched it to fit the shoulders. Chains were placed on it to give weight, as shown. With this rig and supplied with air by an ordinary duplex automobile pump, he stayed down fifteen minutes at a depth of thirty feet and completed important emergency work.

There was no window in this boiler helmet. In a later one, however, 1 oblong glass paperweight cemented to a hole cut in the front of the helmet served as a window. With this rig and a regular deep-sea pump J. J. Grafflin, who devised the apparatus, remained under water nearly two hours at one time.

Before Mr. Grafflin hit upon the boiler helmet idea he knocked one head from an empty beer keg and made a diving helmet out of it. To steady the keg and overcome its buoyancy when submerged, a man stood on top, holding to a strip of wood that was nailed to the keg. With this rough outfit a man was able to stay down nearly two minutes at a time. The beer keg led Mr. Grafflin to adopt the kitchen boiler as an efficient diving helmet. Evidently he is a firm believer in the old axiom "Where there's a will there's a way."