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Then an oaken stake is driven into the ground and a wheel is fixed on it as on an axle. This wheel the villagers, working by relays, cause to revolve with great rapidity till fire is produced by friction. Every one takes home a lighted brand from the new fire and with it rekindles the fire on the domestic hearth.

When the airplane is flying, the rush of wind spins the fan at a terrific rate, its axle operates a little dynamo in this torpedo-like case and manufactures electric current. The current then passes into this small apparatus here with a bulb attached, which regulates the voltage and sends it up to the instruments in a uniform flow, no matter at what speed the airplane may be going."

We think ourselves getting on splendidly, when in the midst of our successes we come to a dead halt. What is the matter? Nerves or muscles or brains give out. We have made too many revolutions in an hour. A hot axle! Men make the mistake of working according to their opportunities, and not according to their capacity of endurance.

There was a smell of leather about him, and his hands and face were grimy. He had a slightly turned-up nose, smallish eyes, half hidden under very black eyebrows, and his lips were thin and straight. His voice was exceedingly high-pitched, and had something creaking in it like the sound of an ill-greased axle.

"Now we are in a pickle and no mistake." "If we had a wire we might bind up that axle," said Tom, looking at the fracture, which was in the form of a long split. "But we haven't any," said Dick. He looked into the carriage. "Nothing here but the hitching strap and I don't think that will do." "There is a farmhouse," said Sam, pointing to a light in a nearby field. "Maybe I can get help there."

Yet turning, he advanced on the enemy behind his shield, and sought succour in the naked point; when the wheel running forward on its swift axle struck him headlong and flung him to ground, and Turnus' sword following it smote off his head between the helmet-rim and the upper border of the breastplate, and left the body on the sand.

"I don't care where they are," said Dave, "as long as they keep away from here until we're through with what we intend to do." From its place in the runabout car Tom drew forth a wheel-jack. This he and Dave fitted under an axle, raising the wheel half aft inch off the ground. Dick rapidly remove the tire from that front wheel.

Those were days, too, in which a depot quartermaster with a drove of government mules and a corral full of public vehicles at his command was a monarch in the eyes of the early settlers; and when, added to these high-priced luxuries, he had on deposit in various banks from Chicago to Cheyenne, and even here at Gate City, thousands of dollars in government greenbacks expendible on his check for all manner of purposes, from officers' mileage accounts to the day laborer's wages, from bills for the roofing of barracks and quarters to the setting of a single horseshoe, from the purchase of forage and fuel for the dozen military posts within range of his supply trains down to a can of axle grease.

The standard coupled passenger express engine on the narrow gauge has inside cylinders 17 in. diameter and 24 in. stroke; the coupled wheels are 6 ft. 6 in. diameter, and the leading wheels 4 ft.; the wheel base is 16 ft. 9 in. The frames are double, giving outside bearings to the leading axle, and inside bearings to the coupled wheels.

This difficulty has been overcome by cutting the axle in two and placing between the ends a series of gears which permit the two wheels to revolve at different speeds and also apply the power to both alike. This device is called a compensating gear, and is worked out in various ways by the different builders.