The Weather II . ftIUkV-J . ...II
' Ilk 1 13
Or. Gerhard Fiaher and the
Radio Treasure Finder.
Radio"Divining RocTMay
Locate Buried Treasure
Alto, Calif., Scientist Builds Instrument
Sensitive to Underground Metals
By Frances Ayres
WHO hasn't dreamed of finding hidden pirate
loot or of unearthing golden fortunes of long
dead misers? The fascination of buried treasure
has held men for centuries, but it was not until
science took a hand that there have been any
definite hopes of a reward.
The procedure for today's fortune seeker is sim
ple if he is equipped with the radio eye of the
Metallascope, a recently completed invention of
Dr. Gerhard Fisher,
Palo Alto, Calif., ra
dio authority, who
won renown as the
designer of the radio
compass for the dir
igible Macon.
This super - sensi
tive ore detector is
built along strictly
scientific lines and is
no kin to the "dip
needles" and "hazel
sticks" used by su
perstitious prospec
tors and treasure
hunters.
The Metallascope
is as simple to oper
ate as it is accurate.
The user has no need
for technical knowV
edee. All he has to do
is to pick up the instrument, which is built in a
light wooden frame with handles for carrying, ad
just the earphones, and start walking over the
area where he believes treasure is buried.
WHEN the radio beams from the transmitter
come in contact with metal under the sur
face of the ground, a volume of noise like radio
static sounds in the earphones and the meter on
the Metallascope records the find. By covering an
area of about 25 feet, the hunter can learn the
exact location of the metal by noting where the
earphones and the meter show the greatest oscil
lation. Then he starts digging!
The response of the instrument increases with
the amount of water or moisture surrounding the
hidden ore. Thus it can be used effectively for
locating sunken treasure ships. The two units can
be lowered in a watertight bag, while wires con
nect the receiver to the earphones above the water.
"The Metallascope consists of two units carried
in a balanced position. One is the transmitting unit
which sends into the earth a series of radio beams.
These are received by the receiving unit, equipped
with a special headphone," explains Dr. Fisher.
SEARCHING for buried treasure is not the use
for which Dr. Fisher invented the Metalla
scope. It is equally efficient for discovering hidden
veins of commercial ore and can be used success
fully in locating lost pipe lines under city streets.
But it is as an aid to treasure hunters that
th Metallascope has figured most prominently
since its perfection a few months ago. With it,
Herbert Sutherland of Arizona located silver and
gold bullion worth $15,000 on the site of an old
mission, and there is a steady demand for Metalla
scopes from the Bahamas, South Africa, and ports
in the Caribbean where pirates are said to have
buried their loot.
In fact, the Metallascope might well uncover a
great hoard of treasure resting now on the bottom
of sundry seas. Shifting tides and heavy disturb
ances under water often shift sunken vessels great
distances from the spot at which they sank. Re
cent efforts to locate the Lusitania illustrate the
itoinL The area in which the ship went down after
being torpedoed is well established, yet searchers
worked for weeks endeavoring to locate the hulk.
Through use of the Metallascope, or a similar de
vice, much useless effort would have been eliminated.
Far from the beaten trails, these daring Western women are pioneering In unusual occupations. Left to right above:
Mildred Gordon, girl desert explorer, shown with two Seri Indian women; Catherine Reidy, who makes a business
of capturing rattlesnakes; Sally Brewer, who guards the ruins of Wupatki, 73 miles from Flagstaff, Arizona; Fox
Hastings, cowgirl, whose specialty is the dangerous "bulldogglng." Below, Mrs. Nell Halderman, who tames the
poisonous Gila monsters of the wastelands.
Modern Women Uphold Traditions of
Old Western Days With Unusual Jobs
In Desert Wastelands, Daughters of the Pioneers Brave Daily Perils as They Collect Rattlesnakes,
Guard Ancient Ruins and Prove They're as Rugged as Their Forebears
By George Max
ALTHOUGH the last of the prairie schooners
are in museums and airplanes and "iron
horses" have supplanted the stage coaches, women
are still pioneering on the last frontiers of the
West.
In a thousand nooks of the deserts and moun
tains, where life is much the same today as it was
when other wives on these trails wore picture
dresses, hardy, brave women are struggling to
bring civilization to outposts many miles from any
town.
They keep airways beacons flashing on lonely
deserts; fight cattle rustlers and "ornery" top
hands on isolated ranches; watch over the ghostly
ruins of Indian pueblos, where the laughter and
cry of babies have not been heard for long cen
turies, and match wits with the wild creatures of
the wastelands.
Typical among these pioneers of 1936 is chestnut-haired,
blue-eyed Sally Brewer, who watches
over the ancient ruins of Wupatki in a land of
desolate volcanic ash and lava some 70 miles from
Flagstaff, Arizona. She lives in one of the pent
houses of Wupatki, which was built about the time
of the Crusades, some 900 years ago, by a people
who wore bright clothing and gay adornments and
were clever at tilling fields.
From a room on the third story of Wupatki's
"Tall House," which, except for whitewashing, is
just the same as when it was deserted many cen
turies ago, Bhe watches to see that curiosity seek
ers don't damage the historic ruins.
Life is rather lonely for her. Sometimes tourists
drive by, but often for days, especially in the win
ter, she will see no one except a wandering Navajo
or Hopi, who may come in to warm his hands in
silence over the cheery fire of the white squaw.
SALLY BREWER is only one of a legion of
women archaeologists who are charting pre
historic cities through the West, penetrating into
mountain wildernesses and scorching deserts to
unearth the history of the West before the coming
of the white man.
Following even a more dangerous profession is
Fox Hastings, one of the few women bulldoggers
In the world. She thinks no more of jumping from
the back of a horse, running at top speed, on to the
horns of a charging steer than she does of sweep
ing the floor. In fact, she would much rather tackle
a Bteer than a broom.
She follows the rodeo circuit from coast to
coast. For 20 years she has been tossed from horse
to horn, suffering broken legs, crushed ribs, frac
tured arms, and once a concussion of the brain.
"But I wouldn't give this up for any other life,'
she said. '1 like the thrill when I match my 135
pounds against a half ton of brute force. I like the
feeling of triumph which surges through me when
the animal fall to the ground."
The tribe of Fox Hastings Is many. On almost
every ranch in the West, some cowgirl is keeping
alive the tradition of strength and intrepidity
which characterized the women of the covered
wagon days.
MRS. ALTA BONNER is holding one frontier.
When she and her husband and children
moved into their desolate home in the Escalante
desert of southern Utah, their hopes were high.
They would work hard to make a fruitful oasis
blossom from the hot sands. Then came tragedy;
Bonner died.
That was five years ago. Left alone to support
her nine children, Mrs. Bonner carried on.
Today, 100 miles from civilization, in the midst
of a vast wasteland, a friendly beacon winks re
assuringly every njght, winter and summer, to a
great transcontinental passenger plane. She walks
from her home five miles distant every day of the
year to care for the emergency landing field.
In the six years of its existence, it has never
been used; yet it furnishes an ever-ready refuge
for ships in trouble.
Those who teach schools in snowbound settle
ments or in "sky cities" on some Indian mesa,
where the mail comes only once every month or
two, also are many. Mrs. Nancy Thele, a pretty
brunet In her early twenties, is school superintend
ent for Mohave county, Arizona, a county which
covers more territory than Rhode Island.
It is a wild land of blazing wastelands and
treacherous canyons. In places, it is a no-man's-land,
and to reach some of her schools, Mrs. Thele
has to travel more than 400 miles, circling through
Nevada and Utah. She travels by automobile, by
cart, and on horseback to visit one-room schools
in the "back country," where the tide of civiliza
tion has barely washed. She often goes alone.
A DIFFERENT type of pioneering is that of
Catherine Reidy of Tucson, Arizona. A young
college graduate, she found herself a few years
ago on a lonely homestead. A student of botany
and zoology, she became interested in the life
about her. She found that eastern collectors also
were interested in the plants and animals of the
desert. '
In her experiments, she discovered that the
vertebrae of the rattlesnake looked much like
carved ivory when scraped and dried. She strung
them into strands of beads.
Today she sets out almost every morning, armed
only with a long pole which has a heavy wire fork
on one end.
Locating a rattler, she waits until it coils with
its head o".t ready to strike. Then with a swift
accurate thrust she pins its head down with the
fork. One more deft movement with a Hharp hoe
and the snake is lifeless. Or if she wants to take it
alive, she merely uses a loop, and "lussos" the rep
tile. Dangerous? Yes, she has had a few narrow
escapes, but it's ail in a day's work.
MRS. NELL HALDERMAN also finds a living
in capturing the deadly creatures of the mes
quite stretches, only instead of killing them, she
tames them for household pots. She traps Gila
monsters in nets, then begins the long, tedious
work of making them her friends.
"I often work with t'..;.i for months," she re-
'A
lates. "I keep them caged for a time at first and
let them get accustomed to their surroundings.
After a little time, I begin stroking their heads, and
a few weeks later, I let them out of their cages.
Eventually, they come to love me and act much
like puppies. When I go into the backyard to rest,
several of them always come waddling over on
their human-like feet to climb upon me and put
their 'paws' around my neck. At meal time, they
scratch at the back door. If they like you, they are
perfectly harmless. It's only when they are afraid
that they are dangerous."
Pioneers? There are thousands of them yet in
the West. Born of a virile stock, whose forebears
only a generation ago defended their homes from
warring Indians, they face dangerous and lonesome
work with the same courage and self denial of
other wives and mothers on these same trails.
Novel Hoop-Cycle Built
By Coast Actor-Inventor
Odd Vehicle Defies Laws of Gravity; Small
Motor Drives It at 70 Miles an Hour
By Bob Decker
WANT to go for a ride in a hoop? It's not im
possible Walter Nilsson, coast inventor and
vaudeville performer, recently completed his first
hoop-cycle, and it rolls along merrily under the
power of its one-cylinder motorcycle motor.
The principle of the unicycle, a wheel within a
wheel, is the same as the gyroscope. The faster
the wheel turns, the steadier it travels. Unicycles
ha've been built before that would travel in a
straight line, but could not turn. Nilsson's inven-
r I poiSP'- -).-- ill
Inventor Walter Nilsson driving his odd hoop-oyol.
tion has a secret steering device. The outer wheel
turns at an angle and the driver's seat remains
in an upright position.
The wheel is five feet, six inches in diameter
and 16V-; feet in circumference. The tire is pneu
matic and is cast from a special mold. The one
cylinder motor propels the present unicycle at a
speed from three to 70 miles an hour. There are
three forward speeds. To back up, he puts his gears
in neutral and pushes back wit, his feet. From
75 to 80 miles on a gallon is normal fuel con
sumption. NILSSON experimented eight years before he
finally was successful. The public first got a
look at his contraption In 1934 when he success
fully drove his machine in and out of heavy down
town traffic in Los Angeles.
The unicycle is driven by wheels, resembling
pulleys, connecting the inside and outside rims.
The motor turns the wheels, forcing the outaide
wheel to turn.
PAGE THREE-B
save
thoi