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Felicia the ferret cleaned the long narrow tubes of a nuclear particle accelerator at Fermilab's Meson Laboratory in 1971
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They tied a string to a ferret and got an atomic age pipe cleaner.
The ferret cost $35 and is 15 inches long. She helps clean the 300-foot pipes in the Meson Laboratory building now under construction at the $250 million National Accelerator Laboratory at Batavia.
I wonder if the ferret pulled a brush of some sort, or if it was narrow enough that his/her fur is the cleaning material?
"A specially-made collar placed around Felicia's neck carries a string which she pulls through the pipe. To the end of this string workmen fasten an appropriate swab which is then pulled through the pipe by the workmen. After that the vacuum pipe is clean and free of unwanted scrap particles."