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grounds, the whole countryside brought lunch baskets and came to enjoy the sports and to participate in the exhibits; there was a plowing contest for which the young men had been practising for weeks, and in which they were all beaten by an old, old man with a long, white beard, a lame horse, and an ancient plow. There was the traditional greased pole to be climbed, and other games and contests. There were regular exhibits of preserves and farm produce, etc. The whole day's entertainment cost $150.

Perhaps this does not seem to be church work; but the pastor showed that it was. The good hard work which preceded the fair and the friendly rivalry of the contests launched a species of fellowship and goodwill hitherto unknown among these people; petty jealousies and bickerings vanished, people discovered their neighbors, and the pastor proceeded with a programme of holding them together through the long, cold winter with a series of fortnightly socials. He started four or five of the young people making a study of the history of the Jews, and the delivering of their essays was made the excuse for the meetings at one farmhouse after another. No one was put to any expense at these meetings, and everybody was invited.

"Usually there was an attendance of about seventy," said the pastor, "but on bad nights when it was sleeting and pitch dark, the attendance fell off to about fifty."

"Nobody particularly wanted the socials when we began," he went on. "I had to butt in. At one house where I called the family was on the inside, and I on the outside, and we maintained those friendly relations throughout the interview. I enlarged on what we planned to do, and they said they had no objections. Yet by the happy accident of being able to do something for them in time of trouble I made my way into that house finally, and later we had one of our best meetings there."

In the meanwhile he has drawn the people into the church by the simple expedient of holding a series of afternoon and evening services in the schoolhouses for those who live far from town. Then he heard there was to be a dance in a

district where his Sunday school attendance did not satisfy him.

"Just what I want; I'll be there," he sent word; and at ten o'clock, when there was a lull in the dancing, he took the floor and outlined his plans. The following Sunday he had an attendance of fiftynine instead of the customary nineteen.

"A year before the fair," he explained simply, "I should not have been invited, or I should have felt in the way if I had gone. But after we had come to know each other, well, I went to their party and they came to mine."

And thus ended the pastor's narrative of a community where spiritual regeneration had grown out of a fair.

One afternoon of the Amherst conference was given over to "Reports of Actual Achievements in Community Organization and Development."

This was a remarkable sort of experience meeting of representatives from twelve tiny towns all the way from Cape Cod to Western Berkshire which had sounded a call to action within the last year or two. A variety of things had served as a nucleus of growing civic consciousness in these villages. Often it was the church which started it; once a goodroads slogan; once a pageant; again, the women of the community awoke to the need of holding the young people together and away from doubtful amusements.

In two towns a few enterprising citizens have achieved "community houses." It was the women in Montague City who put up a $3,500 library hall to be used not only to house the library but for socials and entertainments as well.

They started with only sixty-eight cents in the treasury, but they were rich in pluck and a grim determination to rouse the dormant public spirit of the town.

They began to raise their fund by giving a little entertainment. When the house was half up, the women mortgaged the first half to pay for the rest. And so on through a series of undertakings which would have taxed the courage of an experienced financier, until they achieved their attractively furnished little building which is now a great source of pride and a centre for all the social life of the town.

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THE LAKES AND PARKS OF MINNEAPOLIS

PEN spaces where the public has a chance to play are a tremendous asset of any city that is encouraging people to come to it to work. Minneapolis has a park system founded on natural conditions. It is perhaps more fortunate in this respect than most other cities, but it is to its credit that adequate advantage has been taken of the natural conditions. A chain of lakes is connected by parkways or boulevards and the utmost use is made of these to provide recreation and amusement to the people of the city.

The lakes give the advantages of water sports and recreations in an inland city. There are the Lakes of the Isles, two hun

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dred acres; Lake Calhoun, five hundred and twenty-two acres; Lake Harriet, more than four hundred acres; Lake Nokomis more than four hundred acres. Three of these lakes have been completely reclaimed and improved. This year a perfect bathing beach, with an adequate bath house has been opened and free swimming instruction is provided for the citizens The use of the bath house is free, a merely nominal charge being made for the use of bathing suits. A gigantic roof garden for three thousand people projects over the water, and the park department provides the finest music available. Boating and fishing are allowed on all the lakes The city stocks the waters with fish for its citizens' sport and provides racks for the boats of individual owners for the small charge of $4 a year. The revenues from the boat stands, from the refectory, and from the bathing house pay for all the labor involved in their maintenance The population of Minneapolis is 350,000. and there is an acre of park for every 100 inhabitants.

As in other Western cities the park system began at the beginning of its history in 1857.

But the present large movement for city recreations began in 1883. Its practical realization was accomplished only in the last eight years and the city has gained its open spaces comparatively cheaply. The 3,700 acres of Minneapolis cost $4,000,000 for land and $2,000,000 for improvements Boston, one of the best parked cities of the East, has 2,500 acres, which cost more than $9,000,000 for land alone and $10,000,000 for improvements.

The influence of this constructive public park movement is seen in the suburban districts of the city. Practically every house has well planted grounds, most of which have even been laid out by a landscape architect. There is probably more garden beauty in Minneapolis than in any other city of its size.

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UPPER PICTURE: SOUTH ELEVENTH STREET, TACOMA, WASH., IN 1890.

LOWER PICTURE:

THE SAME VIEW TO-DAY. THE POPULATION OF TACOMA INCREASED FROM 37,714 IN
TO 83.743 IN 1910, A GROWTH OF 122 PER CENT. IN TEN YEARS

1900

P

MAN AND HIS MACHINES

RAISING WATER BY GAS

EXPLOSIONS

ROBABLY the most interesting mechanical invention placed in actual operation on a large scale during the last year is the remarkable explosion-pump invented by an Englishman. He watched a piston removing water indirectly by the force of gas explosions and wondered why the explosions could not be utilized direct. He saw no reason why the explosions had first to be confined in an internal combustion engine to provide power for the operation of a pump. He devised an apparatus that not only does away with the conventional internal combustion engine, with its piston, fly-wheel, and crank, but also with anything that, through familiar usage, would be recognized as a pump.

His invention consists mainly of a combustion chamber and a play-pipe. Water from an intake rises to a certain height in the combustion chamber, a gas explosion is directed against it, and this water is driven through the play-pipe into a conical tower or stand-pipe. The pipe connecting the combustion chamber with the tower is called a play-pipe rather than just a delivery-pipe, because, after each explosion. the water plays or swings back and forth through it, in somewhat the same manner that a wave, coming from the ocean and striking striking a breakwater, is thrown back until driven in again by the force of a succeeding wave. succeeding wave. But this is more clearly explained by a detailed description of the method of operation.

Air and gas, in the proper mixture, are forced by a small compressor into the space above the water level in the com

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AN ENGLISH CITY'S GASOLINE-PUMPED WATER SUPPLY

THE OUTLET OF AN AUXILIARY WATER-SYSTEM OF LONDON WHICH UTILIZES GASOLINE-EXPLOSIONS IN A
NEW WAY
IT IS SIMPLER AND CHEAPER THAN ANY PUMPING MACHINERY HERETOFORE IN USE

stion chamber, and then this charge is ed by an electric spark. The force of e explosion drives the water through the ay-pipe into the conical tower, from hich a delivery-pipe carries part of it to the reservoir or other point of devery. The water thus driven out of the mbustion chamber and along the plaype into the tower leaves a partial vacuum

the chamber, and more water enters rough the inlet pipes. At the same time r is drawn into the combustion chamber irough what are called scavenging valves, nd the water left in the conical tower, aving come to rest, starts to fall. As uch of this water as can so escape passes rough the delivery-pipe into the reservoir, nd the remainder drives the water in he play-pipe back into the combustion hamber, the pressure so created expelling he products of combustion, now well liluted by the scavenging air, through pen exhaust valves. As the water coninues to rise in the combustion chamber hese valves are sealed by it, and the liluted products of combustion still remaining are compressed until the pressure so attained is sufficient to cause the water to surge back along the play-pipe again. When this occurs the pressure in the combustion chamber again falls below atmospheric pressure, a charge of air and gas is drawn in, and the water, on its next return, swinging through the play-pipe, compresses the charge. This is exploded at the proper moment by the electric spark. In other words the water in the play-pipe goes back and forth twice for every explo

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A

MOTION-PICTURE FILMS
THAT TALK

LMOST every one has now been made familiar with the Edison "talking" pictures, which have been hailed as a great advance in the sion. The process is automatically re- motion-picture world. The "talking" pic

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