Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-02

cpect them 10 stay al sea ~ years, tCuh
r from aboard.
Jaw, slipped" complained the foot balleE.
Just before the final bout the young man
from Cleveland stripped OF his shirt The
shoulders and the barrel chest OF a trained
athlete. He took the second foot ball player
without any formalities and tossed him, grJnt-
ing. to the ground. Then he took both OF
them together and threw them in a heap, while
the mountaineers howled with delight.
THAT was Armstrong; last wrestling match
- except for a period few years later
when he turned aside for strange interlude.
With a group of railroad engineers and sur
veyorS he attended circus in Cleveland. or
course, there was a strong man with bulging
muscles who lifted dumbbells and tossed heavy
weights around
".That looks eaSy!" Armstrong remarked. cas-
ually. 'Tn bet could do that myself"
HIS friends thought he was joking, but he
persisted.
stn believing he was joking. his friends
trailed after him when the performance was
over. To the amazement Of his friends, ARM
strong lifted all the weights, bent an iron bar
over his arm and added another trick or two
to the circus mans repertoire.
It so happened that the circus Sandow was
quitting the following week and the circus
manager hired Armstrong before the young
engineer could explain it was only q joke.
For two months that Summer he Travelled
with the circus. rode horse in the street
parade. helped the canvaSmen put up the big
top. And then he threw up the job and went
to Texas to survey pipe lines for an oil com.
pany.
FOR the next five years, from Spindle Top 10
- the Panhandle, he followed the oil drillers.
helping solve the problems Of storage and
transport by day. studying books by night.
From the outbreak of the World War until
he was given leave Of absence to carry on
his seadrome work, he was with the E. !. du
Point de Nemours Co.
The seadrome problem was to construct q
floating platform large enough to give ample
landing space, which would remain steady and
level under all weather conditions
Ships are designed to pitch and toss under
wave action to relieve the strain on their
structures.
Discarding this principle, he designed float
built on steel skeleton framework which would
permit high waves to pass under it unobstruct-
ed. He built models and tested them in
tank. Under violent wave conditions-waveS
equivalent to $50 feet high-his sea platform
remained level, whereas the model of the
steamship Majestic, built to scale was swamped
by waves so feet high.
Then he built a 35-foot model and tested It
in the Choptank River and in the waters OF
Chesapeake Bay He found the same condi-
lions true there.
THE seadrome, when completed and planted
in the ocean, viii tower 80 feet in the air.
its under structure great mass of stills, guys,
braces. At the rear, between the sea and the
deck, will be stabiizers similar to those on the
tails Of airplanes and dirigibles. The stills viii
descend ITO feet into the ocean. They will he
hollow tubes of metal.
About three quarters Of the way down each Of
the more than 20 stilt-hke tubes win be the
buoyancy tanks. These tanks, divided into 1e
compartments, win contain compressed air.
They viii be 50 arranged that . man can get
down TO them inside the "sttlt" TO make repairs.
(CoDyTishts 1891