Soulas's Swing Bed.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 9, 2 July 1906, Page 247

Soulas's Swing Bed.

Victims to mal-de-mer will look hopefully forward to the adoption by steamship companies of the swing bed shown in our illustration. This contrivance, which is the invention of the Rev. Father Soulas, has already been tried on a small vessel, the " Stormbird," in a high sea and has proved very successful. The bed proper is carried withm two tubular frames one inside the other. The inner frame is pivoted at the sides to the outei frame, which in turn is pivoted at its ends in standards resting upon the deck. A heavy weight depends from the inner frame and serves by the action of gravity to cause the bed to assume a horizontal position no matter how much the vessel may pitch or rock. An ingenious friction contrivance adjustable upon the pivotal connections between the frames, prevents too free a movement of the bed, and an arrangement is used whereby the bed is maintained stationary relatively to the vessel, to allow the passenger to get m and out. The invention has already excited the attention

of steamship owners in Europe, and it is quite possible that ere long it will he seen upon ocean liners trading to the colonies.

One of the desirable qualifications of a central station engineer is an acute sense of smell, for when an electrical trouble is developing there is

generally preliminary warning by reason of the insulation charring. Thus recently, says Power, an engineer, coming into his station, noticed a sulphurous smell, and found that an incipient short circuit had developed across the sulphur used for cementing a switch contact into the panel. The not unpleasant smell given oft by the smouldering cotton, and the very pungent fumes from burning rubber tape, have saved many a dynamo from being burnt out.