The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-11-09
ODD THEORY OF
WIRELESS SYSTEM
Scientist Believes Electricity
Go s Through Earth
Not Air.

According to the daily press, NJ. Will
lot. of the French telegraph depart
ment. who is the inventor of various
Geographic. and telephone devices,
maintains that it is the earth and not
the air through which signals are
tran shifted in the Marconi system of
wireless telegraphy. says the Boston
Transcript:
The fact that neither the roundness
of the earth's surface nor intervening
hills intercepts the signals suggested
to him the question whether the mat
ter telegraphed left the masts at the
top or bottom. He conjecrured that il
left at the bottom, especially as the
signalling is not affected by wind or
fog and is improved by giving the
mastS good electric connection with
the earth. His theory involves COM
municating through the geological
beds in which the. earth's electricity
has the same tension, the idea being
that any disturbance at any one point
in the same electric level creates what
naturally would be called swell in
the whole level, leaving the higher
and lower strata comparatively undis-
turbed NJ. Willot proposes to tap
these levels, boring shafts and meas
uring electrical tensions with the cleo
troscope. The French telegraph
department has appointed a committee
to sink shafts to ascertain the distribu-
ton of the electric levels.
The same idea is suggested in an
editorial in the Electrical World and
Engineer (September 22), in which the
writer says:
1T is wonderful how much seems to
depend upon the earth in the HertZian-
wave telegraphy. 1t is common belief
that the earth has little or nothing to
do with the matter, and that the air
or upper world of ether is all-impor-
tant On the other hand, however it
is now recognized that transmission
can be carried considerably further
over the ocean than over the land, and
it is believed that the difference is due
TO the higher conductivity of sea wa
ter. II is even stated that on land the
Gryness or dampness of the soil notice
ably influences the transmission, and
apparently from the same cause
1T is stated that Hertzian-wave tel
egraphy has been a failure in South
Africa during the recent war. owing
to the general prevalence of bad earth.
Not only is good earth in the technical
sense difficult to secure, but the long
desert plains are most unfavorable to
the transmission of electric waves.
What is ideally needed for their trans
mission is a highly conducting level
without absorption, being continually
reflected. In the absence of such an
electric mirror, the waves tumble into
the earth and become absorbed, as we'll
as dispersed.
'All these conditions seem to point
to the ocean as the future scene of
utilization of Hertzian-wave telegrphy
On land we can ordinarily hang or
bury our wires and be content. At sea
we are unable to maintain metallic
communication, and where the ocean
begins the opportunity of wireless tele-
graph begins also. 1t is to be hoped
that the day may not be far distant
when the lighthouses along our coasts
will also be Hertzianwave houses, and
issue signals day and night to the
shipping within fifty miles radius. The
steamers mast will then have two
functions left, one to hold up flags and
the other to hold the antennae."