Cities will be provided with moving street-ways, always in action at two or more speeds; and we shall have learned to hop on and off the lowest speed from the stationary pavement, and from the lower speeds to the higher, without danger. When streets cross, one rolling roadway will rise in a curve over the other. There will be no vehicular traffic at all in cities of any size; all the transportation will be done by the roads’ own motion.

— T. Baron Russell, A Hundred Years Hence, 1906

Face it, you never wanted kids in the first place. Now that you have one, you might as well put him to work. You already have a swing that churns butter; now, thanks to Deanna Porath’s 1984 brainstorm, you can fit a mowing attachment to his tricycle:

An object and advantage of the present invention is to provide a pedal operated mower that does not consume fuel or make noises corresponding to engines for mowers, but provides an arrangement that is conveniently an exercising assembly for operators, both young and old.

A curious side note: The patent abstract claims that one advantage of this arrangement is that “the operator need not be required to start an engine and to endanger pulling his arm out of socket in order to crank the mower,” a risk of which your correspondent had been hitherto unaware. Maybe I’ll build one of these myself.

This is charming — in 1925, William Huffman patented a “jumping balloon” that could carry its operator hundreds of feet into the air. He foresaw a whole new world:

The balloon is particularly useful in jumping over natural or artificial barriers, such as buildings, trees, rivers, chasms and the like; as a convenient means for quickly obtaining considerable altitude for photographic and observation purposes; as a convenient and safe way to practice parachute landings and give preliminary instructions in lighter-than-air craft to students; as a convenient means of quickly and easily ascending to the tops of trees, houses and the like for inspection; and other purposes.

With that in view, the sport became a fad of sorts in the 1920s. Time magazine wrote, “Walk along the ground with a breeze at your back, approach a fence, bend your knees, spring lightly into the air when you feel the tug of the balloon. You will sail over the fence so easily and land so gently that you will be surprised.”

“All the legislatures will be busily engaged in passing laws prohibiting people from leaving the earth too freely, or rules for the right of way up and down and sideways,” predicted enthusiast Frederick S. Hoppin. “And then there will be all the new rules of etiquette: should you pass over or around a lady?”

Bicycles are great for exercising the lower body, but what about the back? In 1900 Louis S. Burbank had a bright idea — by mounting a pair of sculls on the frame, the modern cyclist can row his way to total fitness.

The levers are used for both pedaling and steering. The patent says nothing about brakes.

We may safely suppose that the ocean ships of a hundred years hence will be driven by energy of some kind transmitted from the shores on either side. It is absolutely unquestionable that no marine engine in the least resembling what we know to-day can meet the requirements of the new age. The expense of driving a steamship increases in such a ratio to its size and speed that the economic limits of steam propulsion are foreseen. Probably the ships of A.D. 2000 will differ entirely in appearance from those we know. Just as road friction is the bugbear of the railway engineer, so water-resistance is the bugbear of the marine engineer. The ships of a hundred years hence will not lie in the water. They will tower above the surface, merely skimming it with their keels, and the only engines they will carry will be those which receive and utilise the energy transmitted to them from the power-houses ashore — perhaps worked by the force of the very tides of the conquered ocean itself.

— T. Baron Russell, A Hundred Years Hence, 1906

Thomas Cane’s “Santa Claus detector,” patented in 1996, combines yuletide spirit with cold-hearted espionage. Kids booby-trap the hearth as shown on Christmas Eve, and if the decorative ribbon is pulled during the night, the stockings light up, giving proof of the fat man’s visit. “This is particularly important to young children, providing reassurance that the child’s good behavior has in fact been rewarded by Santa Claus.”

The patent abstract says that the same technology can be used to monitor the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Presumably they’re working on countermeasures.

A trap for gullible tapeworms, patented in 1854 by Alpheus Myers.

The capsule is baited and swallowed by the patient, after a fast “to make the worm hungry.” The worm seizes the bait, the trap closes on its head, and the doctor withdraws the whole length of the parasite from the patient’s stomach, presumably with a magician’s flourish.

“In constructing the trap, care should be taken that the spring g, is only strong enough to hold the worm, and not strong enough to cause his head to be cut off.”

This ought to work — in 1966, D.R. Petrik proposed replacing the wheels of trains with blocks of ice.

More precisely, the wheels (101) would be bracketed by ice blocks (102), which are pressed downward against the heated track and assume the weight of the train. As the blocks melt they can be replaced with fresh ones from refrigerated compartments in the car (103) “without stopping the train or engaging the wheels.”

If it’s not pulled by a locomotive, the whole business can be propelled by jet or rocket thrust, or perhaps propellers. “Of course the wheels could be eliminated altogether in suitable cases, although their retention may be persuaded by the desire to provide an emergency or reserve means of support.” Happy landings.