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The Electrical Auctioneer To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: In consequence of an article in your issue of April 26th, page 371, on the Electrical Auctioneer in Holland, I beg to inform you, that this system has been in application for several years in the auctions of vegetables at Delft and at Loosduiner near The Hague, and with excellent results It is perhaps known to you that these environs supply Berlin with vegetables. The Hague. A. LTJKKIEN. The Dangerous Position of Aeroplane Motors To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: The sad and unnecessary death of Lieut. Park in an army biplane near Los Angeles on May 9th, brings those interested in aviation face to face once more with a fatal error in design which places the motor behind or beside the pilot's seat in an aeroplane. This error has caused a large share of the prejudice now existing among people; but they are not generally aware of the chief, the underlying cause of the deaths of several of the world's best aviators. There are many cases so similar to that of Lieut. Park that a statement of the manner of his death will suffice to show that the placing of an engine in such a palpably dangerous position is little short of criminal. This is the opinion expressed by every aviator and mechanic with whom the writer has discussed the subject. It is a point which should be emphasized by the press and everyone interested in the future of aviation and the safety in design of flying machines of all types. The writer has seen motors torn from beds to which they were often insecurely fastened and literally buried in the ground by their force of impact. The shock necessary to dislodge a two or three hundred pound mass of metal would, in many cases, be insufficient to bruise more than slightly the pilot of a machine were he not crushed by the motor. This has been demonstrated in many accidents to machines built with the heavy parts placed in front of the driver. Hubert Latham was not even badly shaken up in a fall of a hundred and fifty feet which demolished a barbed wire fence, the landing chassis, propeller and one wing of his 1,400-pound Antoinette monoplane at the Los Angeles aviation meet in 1910, the day before Hoxsey was killed at the same meet. On the other hand, a well-known aviator told the writer of a fall in which he barely escaped death when his motor, placed a little to one side and at his rear, was dislodged and shot past him, making a hole two feet deep in a plowed field. An eye witness of the accident to Lieut. Park says that the tree which wrecked his machine was only a bush, a fall from the top of which would probably not have injured anyone. The officer's head was horribly mangled by the heavy motor. The flying machines of to-day are certainly an improvement over the earliest makes; but beyond a doubt they are faulty in many points. Many of these faults are difficult to remedy; but the problem of locating the motor is certainly very easy of solution. More attention should be given by all designers to placing the motor in aeroplanes in such a position as to give the pilot this one insurance of safety at least. Will army engineers, in justice to the men who risk their lives for their country, alter the machines now in use and make the placing of the motor in front of the pilot one of the requirements for acceptance by the Government? This will cost little; surely not as much as the loss of men of Lieut. Park's caliber. Pasadena, Cal. WOODWARD F. BARNWELL. Battleship Protection for the Pacific Coast To the Editor of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: In your issue of October 12th, 1912, in an article on the last naval review in the Hudson River, the following appears: "The great mobilization of the Atlantic fleet at New York, for inspection by the Secretary of the Navy and review by the President of the United States, is the largest and most important gathering in one place of the ships of the United States navy that has ever occurred. Last year ninety ships were mobilized at New York, whose total tonnage reached 576,634. To-day there are gathered in the Hudson River 123 ships of all classes, whose aggregate displacement is 720,486 tons That the people of New York and visitors from the various states will thus have under their eyes, at one and the same time, practically the whole fighting force of the United States navy, is shown by the fact that the latest official summary of the displacement of all the ships of the United States navy gives the total as 758,499 tons. So that the fleet at New York is only about 38,000 tons short of including the whole of the effective navy." It may be rather late to quote the above from your October 12th issue, but since Secretary of State Bryan has made his hurried trip to California, it seems to us that the above facts are a great deal truer to-day than then. When you say, the fleet at New York is only about 38,000 tons short of including the whole of the effective navy, we wonder where that 38,000 tons is. Does it include that one battleship that might have swelled the number to thirty-two at the review? It certainly does not include the six armored cruisers that compose the Pacific fleet, or the famous old Oregon (our one lonesome battleship on the entire Pacific Ocean), or the Saratoga (formerly the New York"), the Monterey or Monadnock of the Asiatic station And let us add that the last two named vessels belong to the class that are used in gunnery experiments on the Atlantic side. The thirty-one battleships that participated in the great review at New York carried a total of 122 12-inch and 13-inch guns The total number of 13-inch guns on the Pacific is eight, for since her rebuilding the Oregon carries eight 13-inch instead of the original four 13-inch and eight 8-inch The monitor Monterey mounts two 12-inch and two 10-inch guns, and the Monadnock four 10-inch guns. This is a total of eight 13-inch, two 12-inch, and six 10-inch guns afloat on the Pacific to-day, and each one of these ships is in reserve, and then, too, the guns are of old patterns and not to compare with those of the crack ships of the Atlantic fleet. The effective fighting force on the Pacific consists of the six armored cruisers of the California class, of 13,-680 tons displacement, which form the Pacific fleet, and the old armored cruiser Saratoga, of 8,150 tons, of the Asiatic fleet The remaining vessels of these two fleets are cruisers and gunboats that are fit only for police duty. The California class mounts four 8-inch and fourteen 6-inch guns, the Saratoga four 8-inch and ten 5-inch, so it is easily seen that the heaviest gun in active service on the Pacific to-day is of 8-inch caliber, and only twenty-eight of them, compared to the total of 104 12-inch guns that are carried by the twenty ships of the Atlantic fleet. As an argument for having a sufficient naval force on the Pacific, a comparison of the territory supposed to be guarded by the navy is interesting. On the Atlantic side draw a line from Maine to Porto Rico and the Panama Canal; on the Pacific this line would stretch from Panama on the south to Tutuila, Samoa, thence to Guam and the Philippine Islands, and back again to the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands, from where it would go straight north to Alaska This experiment will give the uninformed an idea, of the vast amount of territory over which the two small fleets on the Pacific must hover as compared to that guarded by the Atlantic fleet. Mt. Vernon, Wash. R E. BOWRON.
