Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1897-05-14
TELEGRAPHY WITHOUT WIRES.
st. Louis Globe.Democrat.

AS yOoh6 4o02Adlit SOlllJ " lO 10
not yet % years of age, is opening out
the newest and one of the most beauti-
full of scientific fairy tales. Marconi
has been studying for some years the
question of telegraphing without wires
and the results he has already reached
are so extraordinary that but for the
leading telegraphic experts in London
their acceptance might have been ap-
preciably delayed. Marconi says we
can telegraph without wires, not
only through air, but through solids.
This was lately demonstrated to a
limited extent in London by DR..
Chundcr Bose, learned Hindoo, who
has also been working on electric
waves. Popularity speaking, an elec-
trio wave in the ether, though it moves
in all directions, progresses outward
like a wave produced by dropping a
stone in pond. The water wave can
be seen. An electric wave is, of course,
invisible. Supposing cork is float
ing on the surface of the pond at any
distance from the place where the
stone was dropped. This cork, when
the wave reaches it, will bob up and
down. Though electric waves cannot
be seen, an arrangement has been
devised which will indicate their
presence the same as the cork does.
This device, which detects and records
the passage of the wave. consists of an
electric radiator and a receiver for the
waves. DR.. Bose placed his receiver
in room Is feet distance from the
radiator, with three walls of bricks
and mortar, 16 inches thick, between
them. The electric wave projected
penetrated the walls, and traversed
the distance with sufficient energy
when it was concentrated by lens
placed close to the radiator, to fire a
pistol and ring bell. 1t would, Of
course, have transmitted telegraph
message.
Last September, Marconi made a
notable discovery. He was sending
electric waves through the air and get
ting signals at distance of mile or
thereabouts, when he found that the
wave which went to his receiver
through the air was so affecting an
other receiver which he had set up on
the other end of the hill. In other
words, the waves were either going
through or over the hill. Later ex-
periments convinced Marconi that the
waves actually went through the hill,
which was three-quarters of a mile in
thickness. This led to the conception
and completion of special apparatus,
which is being tested in England un-
der government supervision. The
details of the invention are not yet
given to the public, as the transmitter
and receiver are not yet patented. The
essential feature is the character Of
the wave produced. For instance,
while what are known rs Hertz waves
have very limited penetrative power,
the waves used by Marconi, which can
be excited with the same amount
of energy as the Hertz waves, will
penetrate anything and everything.
These waves have 250,0O0,OO0 vibra-
tions per second. With comparatively
rudimentary apparatus, a message has
been transmitted through eight thick
nesses of very solid wall over 100
yards. The extension of the distance
to which messages can be sent is
dependent on the practical limitations
of the transmitter and receiver. 1t is
believed that these limitations will
permit, even now, of telegraphic mes
sages being sent across a large city,
through the houses, from four to five
miles, and Marconi expects. before
long to thus transmit dispatches for
twenty miles.
The whole subject is as yet so start
ling as almost to battle the imagina.
ton but the astounding statement has
been made that the Marconi waves, un.
der certain conditions, could set up an
induced current which would cause a
spark, and of course, an explosion in
the magazine of distant ship. OF all
the coast defenses ever dreamed Of
the idea of exploding ironclads by elec-
trio waves from the shore at modern
cannon ranges is certainly the terrible
possibility yet conceived.