The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-09-09
THE HELIOGRAPHINW WAR
A System Of Great Importance In
Military Science.
How Messages Arc Flashed Over Great
Distances by tho Aid of This Unique
Invention = The Old Method
of Comuunication.

| cent troubles over the late lamenJed
| Geronimo, made what might have been
| termed photographic survey Of the
| seat of the Indian troubles, and located
on the maps the available points of OBJ
| servations with the direction and COM
pass bearing of the other visible sta
| lions. In this way the country was
| covered with network Of Telegraph
lists, and the observers at each station
kept flashing into headquarters the
latest movements of the hostiles.
The Indians, under this cross-ire Of
mysterious sun signals, decided that
the devil was in league with the troop
ers, and their superstitious fears, added
to the constant marrying from the
wide1y-scattered parties of cavalry,
brought them to terms, as never could
have been done but for the use of the
fash signals.
The distances covered by some of the
heliograph stations were remarkable.
Fifty or sixty miles were considered
nothing unusual, and on one reach"
one hundred and twenty-five miles
were covered without an intervening
station.
The invention of the heliograph be-
longs to England, and it has been used
extensively in her service in India and
Egypt, two countries where the atmos-
pheric conditions are very much as in
our own arid west. The instrument
was first brought to America in 1874,
and, like a great many other inventions
of John Bull, was greatly improved by
his Yankee cousin, SO that the lnstru-
ment now in use in our signal corps is
considered by experts the most nearly
perfect in the world.
The speed of the heliograph is not 50
great as that of the regular telegraph
instrument, although the Morse alpha
bet is used. Ten or twelve words
minute is considered good work, and is
a vast improvement over the old
method of signaling by flags. with
which from three to four words min
ute was the most that could be done.
An ally of the heliograph now in use
by the signal corps is the flash lantern,
where messages are sent at night over
stretches of from ten to fifteen miles,
though, under favorable conditions,
with night glasses, the messages have
been sent forty miles at a single reach.
The old method in night signaling was
to use two torches after the manner of
flag signals. One of these, known as
the foot torch, was placed on the
ground in front of the observer, to give
his location to the receiver at the other
end of the line, and the ''fiy torch on
the end of the long pole was used in
waving out the words.
This method was afterward super
seeded by the use of lanterns with dark
shutters worked by a key, as in the
telegraph sounder, but these arrange
ments were likely to get out of order
in the field, and now the energies OF
the corps are bent to perfecting bril-
liant lantern of light weight, which
can be obscured by a regular hello
graph screen. The lanterns now in
use in the corps are fed with a mixture
of kerosene and sperm oil, but expert
ments are now going on with mag
nesium tape, fed before the reflector by
clockwork. It gives very brilliant
light at an expense of about fifty cents
an hour.
The Photograph is regarded by army
officers as one of the most practical
and useful inventions of modern mill
tary science, and in the case of be-
leaguered city would furnish means
of communication with the outside
world that would discount balloons,
carrier pigeons and the magnetic tel
egraph, as the line could not be cut by
the enemy and the messenger could
not be captured or shot in transit. In
the case of Washington, should that
city ever chance to be blocaded, the
heliograph would furnish very GER
tain means of communication for
radius of thirty miles around, and a
signal observer stationed on top of the
monument could flash messages almost
if not quite to Baltimore, if the con-
ditions were at all favorable.