The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-01-01


Morse register and made great inn
provements in electro magnets. 1t was
in 1887 that AIorses telegraphfc instru-
ment, so simple and efficacious that it
is used in a modified form today, was
first exhibited, and that same year
Steinhei1s telegraph, extending II
miles, with a single wire and the use of
the earth to complete the circuit. traced
lines and dots on ribbons of paper.
Many great minds were engaged upon
the problem of telegraphy when Morse
filed his eaveat for a patent in 1897. and
that very year Wheatstone and Cooke
in England took out a patent for an
instrument of their own.
1t is just so years since a patent was
granted Morse for his telegraphic in
stfument and 56 since he brought it into
practical use over the first line erected.
between Washington and Baltimore.
Since then has come the vast develop
ment of the land lines and the subma-
rine cables-the first Of the latter, by
the way, having been laid between
Governors island and the Battery, New
York, and almost Immediately carried
away on the anchor of an intruding
vessel.
As with the discovery. or, rather. the
development. of telegrap1y by means
of wires and cables, so it was with this
latest and in some respects more won
derful science of wireless biography.
1t is a question for experts to decide
whether Faraday or Henry was the
true discoverer of electric waves or the
propounder of a theory respecting their
propulsion, but Clerk Maxwell, the
Scotch physicist who died SO late as
1879, crystallized their theories into fact
by his extensive experiments and
proved that the waves or undulations
of electricity could be transmitted
through the air in the same manner as
light and with the same rapidity.
A German scientist named Heinrich
Hertz verified these theories and exper-
iments, carrying forward the work to
the time of his death in 1895, and
made such progress that the undula-
tons were named, after him, "EIertzian
waves The Russian Popoff success
fully sent messages by them five years
ago, in 1895; Brandy and Ducretet,
Frenchmen, invented receivers for reg
istering them, so that men of several
nationanties are entitled to the honor
of having established the law that gov
erns the phenomena. Suddenly there
appeared one of another nationality, an
Italian named Right Of Bologna, who
had hardly published his account of
some improvements he had made when
his Iaurels were wresteG from him Ky
Ills pupil 0u3llGlI11O N1dfCOuly THEN only
81 years old. It may have been by in
tuition, or from a remarkable grasp of
the subject, but there is no doubt that
Marconi, ike the great American in
ventors. Thomas A Edison and Nicola.
Tesla, is natural born genius" and
was able to advance farther than any
of his predecessors. He awaited him
self of all the inventions and discover
les that had been made before and has
been declared a "practician." rather
than an inventor. But, whatever his
peculiar gift, whether as an originator
or adapter of other mems inventions, it
was through him that wireless telegra-
ply received it's greatest impetus.
No one man can claim the glory OF
achieving this great discovery. and it
might seem Jynjust 10 grant one a pat
ent, and@feIl1se it to another. In fact,
the validity of Nfarconis patents has
been questioned in some particulars,
the French, for instance, advancing the
claim for precedence in the practical
use of electric waves for transmission
Of messages, and especially for NJ.
Branly's invention of that most essen
tial feature of the receiving instru-
ment, the "coherer." Indeed, the his
tory of all past discoveries of like mag
nitude teaches us that the individual
is nothing-the cumulative impulse of
the century or the cycle is everything
For few years. say for the duration
of a patent, one man or company may
control the invention and receive us
usufruct. but in the end the world will
be the beneficiary.
However, it was Signor Marconi, a
Florentine by birth, but whose mother
was an English woman, who gathered
all the threads of the various inven-
tons together and placed them before