The Hawaiian gazette., 1900-11-09
ODD THEORY OF
WIRELESS SYSTEM
Scientist Believes Electricity
Goes Through Earth
Not Air.

According to the daily press. NJ. Will
lot, of the French telegraph depart
ment. who is the inventor of various
telegrap hic and telephone devices,
maintains that it is the earth and not
the air through which signals are
transmitted 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 conjectured that ii
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 calledLa swell in
the whole level, leaving the higher
| and lower strata comparatively undis-
turbed M. Willot proposes to tap
| these levels, boring shafts and meas
uring electrical tensions with the cleo
troscope. The French telegraph
department has appointed Il 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:
lit 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 ba ron a n
o. upper world of ether is ail-impor-
| tunt. on the other hand, however, it
| is now recognized that transmission
can he carried considerably further
| over the ocean than over the land, and
lit is believed that the difference is due
to the higher Conductivity of sea wa
ter. 1t is even st9ted that on land the
drynesS or dampncss of che soil notice
ably influences the transmission, and
apparently from the same cause.
1t is STAGED that Her,Zian-WaNe 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 highly conducting level
surface over which the waves may run
without absorption, being continually
reflected, In the absence of such am
electric mirror, the waves tumble iutb
the earth and become absorbed, as Well
as dispersed.
IAN 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 nur 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
VIII also be Hert2ian-wave houses, and
issue signals day Iald night to the
shipping within fifty miles radius. The
steamers mast viii then have two
functions left, one to hold up nags and
the other 70 hold the antennnan