The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1904-05-26

1Cfk ana ne jars nave been recorded
and read in Chicago. SO with tie long
distance telephone the voice itself has
not been carried on an electric current
across all those miles, but again the
Jelly WAS Jared, and the sensitive ear
drum, aided by transmitter and re-
ceiyer. has heard the vibrations. In
both instances the wire has made an
easy road for the vibration TO travel
over, but ii does not follow that the
road was necessary. One can pass
across fields as well as along asphalt
tum walks. Marconi and others have
realized this; only most of the others.
Marconi included, have made the error
of surprising you must go over fields
and mountains, not through them. Yet
the path lies through them as easily
and naturally as over them, and here
in is involved, in manner, the fourth
dimension, an explanation of which,
however, we need not enter into in or
der to understand the operation of
ether vibrations.
Il have spoken of the earth and the
the ether jelly. For our purpose let
us alter the smile a little. Let us i'm
agine mass of ColOrless jelly with
here and there a drop of chromatic
fluid, forming, say, little crimson
globes at intervals. Let us imagine
now that the colorless portion repre-
sents the ether and the colOred spheres
the so called solid bodies-our earth
and the other planets. The smile is
necessarily crude and inexact, but it
will serve. Now, while those bits of
color are imbedded in the mass of Jelly.
they are nevertheless jelly, like the
rest of the mass. Jar the jelly, and
ether and planets are both Jared by
the same motion, the innermoSt point
of the COlored globe being sensitive to
the motion as well as the surface
which comes in contact with the color
less portion. In this way we may per
celve dimly how a wave motion-the
uplift of an insects wing or a thou
sand tons Of exploding dynamite-Shall
reach the earth's core and the heart of
the outermost star
In other words, we are assuming
that all material things are of essen
italy the same composition as the
ether. OF course they are not-at least
to our senSes-but so far as my obser-
walton of the operation of these ether
vibrations goes they are the same in
that the so called solid bodies offer no
slightest resistance to the progress of
the waves. Progress is not quite the
right word, but have to use it. Thus
an ether wave travelling, say, from
Venus to Mars would not break upon
the earth and pass around, as a sea
wave might break upon a rock, but
would pass directly through the earth,
impeded by its presence no more than
if no solid body had been in its path,
or, to draw the scale down to small
proportions, l hold my hand up-so-
and the waves set in motion by my
words vibrate to you through my hand
as freely as they do above, below and
on either side of 1t. The hand might be
a bar of steel, or for that matter sec
vibration would pass through it and
not seek an easier way around it. If
there were an easier way around it, no
doubt II would seek it, as the sea wave
does at the rock, but to go around is
not any easier for the ether wave. 1t
knows no easy and no hard because
what seem to us obstacles in its path
to it are nothing
''MarConi clearly misconceived the
operation Of these ether vibrations
that is, he presumed them to De sub
ject to obstruction. Hence he estab-
lished lofty stations for setting in mo-
ton the waves and flew kites high in
the air to catch them as they passed a
distant point. whereas he might have
accomplished the same results on level
plains or in %np canyons. His error
was in SUpposlmg the vibrations passed
around the rOck-like sea waves around
I the roCh-instead of through it. When
that signal from overseas reached him
it was in his thought that the waves
that brought ii had come over the
edTtIl curvature, llOuSn IN reality
they had yibrated through it in the
straghtest possible path. Had he been
at a point antipodal to the transmit
ting station the waves would have vi
brated to him from directly under his
feet and wire sunk in an artesiar
well would have served as we'll as 8
kite flying in the air. The tremor of ar
earthquake travels in precisely the
same way-from any one spot in the
earth to any and every other spot il
the straightest line.
II admit that when the thought i,
new it seems difficult to believe the
ether waves pass through solid bodie:
as freely as through thin air. But tina
is because we understand so imper
fectly the nature of the vibrations
Why shouldn't they pass through then
freely? BY aid of the Y ray sigh
! passes freely through an Opaque solid
| l mention the y ray merely because
! is Of recent discovery, is novel in it
workings, and yet has won popular be
lief for itself through its demonstra
bility. 1t would be quite as much t,