The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1884-09-18
THE woNOERs OF ELEUrRsC1rY'

1AG WO6OG1So OA AA%-011sAOA-A
water Power Transmitted Long Dis
tancos-EaIking Through Human Bod
les.
America Is undoubtedly ahead in the
practical application OF electricity 70
purposes of public utility" said Alex
andef Graham Bell, the famous teie-
phone inventor, to-day, "but IN the most
important use to which electricity has
hitherto been applied We are very much
behind the great civ1lizedinetions Of Eu-
rope-that Is, the transmission OF
fosce by means OF electric
ity. A railway seven miles long
is worked by electricity at Port Rush, In
Ireland. A waterfall in the neighbor-
hood Is utilized 70 work the dynamo ma
chine, and the current is transmitted
over telegraph wire from the falls TO
the railway. The waste OF water power
in America for lack Of electrical appa
ratus to transmit IL Is something enor-
nous. If the power Of waterfalls In
places so inaccessible that it cannot be
utilized could be transmitted forty or
fifty miles TO where 1t might be applied
to advantage, all this power run
ming to waste would be saved,
would be cheaper than the steam. and in
the end possibly supersede IT. In regard
TO the telephone, ! am now at work on
the magnetic telephone and have obtain
ed some very satisfactory results, but OF
these the time has not yet come for me
to speak. am trying 70 improve the
central ONCE mAnagement.tT The business
has grown 30 fast as TO create real diff
flculty In handling 1t. It il q curious
thing to consider that all the improve
ments introduced IN telephone are not
improvements Of q permanent nature, but
simply additions to the system intro
duced a. Q matter of expediency. This
new growth has been enormous, and the
system Is Q very complicated one. My
aim is TO try and simplify its workings.
The Introduction Of the underground
wire system as it now exists. That is
the problem am engaged on at
present.
us there any limit to the distance at
which a message may be communicated
by telephonet'
Distance IS q minor consideration.
If there was but one wire on the sur
face of the earth man might talk all
the way around the globe. The multi
tude of disturbing influences tele-
graph wires, atmospheric disturb
ances, and magnetic induen-
ces- overcome the telephone
action. have already overcome as
much resistance as would be necessary
to send message around the world. l
have talked through the bodies of thirty
persons standing with their hands join
ed. That was in England some years
ago, and there were some very
distinguished people among the thirty.
Among the papers that will read be-
fore the association for the advancement
of science tomorrow is one on a new
method of signalling between vessels at
sea. Il is done by means of the tele-
phone, and cannot at present foretell
what practical results it may lead 10.
Signals were successfully exchanged be-
tween two boats in deep water mile and
a quarter apart. In one boat was tele-
phone with one of its two terminals
hanging over the bow and the other
trailing in the water over the stern.
The arrangement was the same In the
other boat, except that instead of tele-
phone 1t contained an electric battery,
with an apparatus for lnterrupting the
current very rapIdly-as often as 100
times in second. Every time the bat
terry was connected with the water the
latter became charged and when the cir
cult was interrupted ceased to be so and
q musical note was produced in the tele-
phone of the distant boat. These results
were obtained with very imperfect ap-
pardLuS. L Ne mublCaI HUG COu1U De pro-
duced at will at different intervals, and
we arranged an alphabet A skillful OPP
orator could read a message communi-
Gated in this way with the greatest ease.
The credit of the discovery of this inven-
tion IS not altogether mine. If Prof.
TrCwbridge. of Harvard College,
had not had the idea
of galvsnemeter instead
of 9 telephone, and with charging the
water with dynamo-electrIc machines In
similar way, the idea of applying the
telephone for that purpose might not
haye occurred to me-"
The professor thought that in this way
vessels might discover the proximity to
each other in fog. Nearly all steam
vessels have dynamo electric machines
to produce the electric light. This ma
chine could be used to charge the water
when the steamer runs into q log, such
as one always finds off the coast of New
foundland, and would give an electric
signal to any vessel dangerously near
to it.