Page 8 Advertisements Column 2

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 70, 8 January 1947, Page 8

ELECTRONIC PIPER

For £l2 10s a month rent, the Electronic Trap Co., of New York, offers a highly scientific rat eradicator. Taking advantage of the fact that rats fear blind alleys and new paths, the electronic rat trap is a floorless, open-ended box placed over a favourite rat run. The rat, seeing nothing suspicious, thinks he can shoot straight through. But the instant he is inside the trap—bang! An electronic eye slams down two doors, one in front and one behind him.

Seeking escape by the only likelylooking “exit,” he pops through a little side door. An electric shock tickles his feet. lie bolts up a ramp to a death chamber where electric contacts finish him off and dump his body into a wire backer. Meanwhile the trap sets itself for another victim. The whole cycle takes about three minutes.

The invention looks like a Heath Robinson contraption, somewhat streamlined. But apparently it works, often catching as many as 24 rats a night. The manufacturer claims that he has paying customers for all the traps he can make.

LILY

Small birds can land on floating lily-pads. So could aeroplanes—if the lily-pads were big and buoyant enough. The British Admiralty last month described its floating airstrip, called “Lily” for short. Made of closely linked hexagonal buoys 6ft. across and 30in. deep, it yields a little to the waves, but is rigid enough to support a plane. Recently a 90001 b. plane landed and took off from a strip of 520 ft. long and 60ft. wide. Floating airports have been an engineer’s dream for years. The sober Lords of the Admiralty claim that the Lily stays fairly flat when ed by waves dsft. high, can be quickly assembled or towed to any desired spot. A Lily with larger, deeper buoys would allow trans-ocean aeroplanes to land at sea.

Inventor R. M. Hamilton started in a small way with the '“Swiss Roll,” a canvas-and-wood pier to be carried, rolled up, on a ship’s deck. During the Normandy invasion, trucks speeded over an unrolled roll to safety on the beach. Final flowering of the idea was Lily.

Much against his will, the young suitor had been persuaded to go through the formality of stating his intentions to his prospective father-in-law. “So you want to become my son-in-law, do you?” the old man remarked grumpily. “Frankly no,” returned the suitor, “but I can see no why out of it if I want to marry your daughter.”