The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-03-18
WIRELESS SYSTEM
NOT ENTIRELY NEW
Signals Sent Without Wires a
Hundred Years Ago
SYSTEM TO BE EXPLAINED
w. A. Ryan Will Give a Free Exhibit
ton of Wireless Telegraphy at
High School Building To-
morrow Night.

w. A. Ryan's illustrated lecture on the
Mareonl system will doubtless attract
large and representative audience at the
High School auditorium tomorrow night
Mr. Ryan is not only recognized as
most lucid and agreeable talker but he
is said to be exceptionally well qualified
for presenting a great scientific thing like
wireless biography so as to interest lay
men. His lecture Is free. The auditorium
of the High School Is furnished with Loo
opera chairs and it Is not likely that any
of them will be vacant.
THE most wonderful thing about the
wireless telegraph" said Mr.. w. A. Ryan
to a reporter yesterday. rs that any one
should have ever deemed wires necessary.
AS early as 1897 Saliva suggested that mes
sages could be sent over great distances
without wires. Prof. Morse actually did
send signals across the susquehanna RI
yer without wires. Prof Henry, curator
of the Smithsonian institution sent Sig
nails from the garnet to the basement of
his dwelling wirelessly. Dolbear patented
a system of wireless telegraphy, but it
lacked certain important elements to
make 1t success. One Mahlon Looms
in the early sixties applied to congress
for an appropriation for the purpose of
constructing wireless telegraph stations
for communication with Europe, claiming
to have invented a method of communi-
eating without wires Edison spent con-
siderable time in the study of the PROF.
lem, but turned his attention to other
matterS4before perfeeting his system; his
patents are now the property Of the Mar
conf company and Edison has been re-
tanned as one of the company's engineers.
Fortunately for the world Mr. Mar
conf was financially independent of gov
eminent or capitalists and so was enab-
led to pursue his researches without
seeking aid; further, he was wholly ig-
norant of the attempts that had been
previously made, which l count as fortu-
nate. circumstance. since he might have
been discouraged from attempting to do
that which others had tried and had failed
to accomplish, had he.tnoWn
But he was not deferred by any fear
of failure and boldly pushed out into new
paths and soon had flched the secret
from the stars that enabled him in mea-
sure to reproduce their phenomena of
transmission of waves of ether without
artificial connecting media, which is evil
dent to us in the light which the stars
send to us nightly.
THE growth and development of the
Mareonl system is one of the marvels of
the century. In less than 81 xyears what
was merely a pleasing scientific demon
stration has become an element of COM
mercial necessity. Thousands of Marconi
wireless telegraph stations are scattered
! all over the face of the earth and the
commercial organizations exploiting the
system have become profit paying in
dustrles.
All this has not been accomplished
without hard work and close application;
like Edison, Marconi is untiring in his
energy. He works from eighteen to twen-
| ty hours day, and although recently
married to a beautiful and accomplished
Irish noblewoman, he is as Industrious
today as at the beginning. Lady Beat
rice O'Brien, that was, Is a sensible wo-
man who shares her husbands Joy of
hard work; she is an inspiration to him
and to her devotion may be attributed
much of the more recent progress that
he has made
Every first-class passenger steamship
that traverses the Atlantic now carries
the Marcon system and 1t is made use
of by all travellers in communicating with
friends on shore; for instance, here is a
telegram that l received Thursday night
from Mr.. George II. Munroe. who is on
his way to London in connection with the
affairs of the Harconi company He took
passage from New York on the steamer
Deutschland on Thursday morning and
when $50 miles from New York he sent
me this message. directed to the Hillman
Hotel, Birmingham. | must explain to
you that the messages sent from mid
ocean are distributed overland by the
wire companies, as the Marconi company
has not yet undertaken the development
of an overland system The Marconi-
grams are transmitted from the steamship
to the nearest station of the company on
shore and from that station are forwarded
to their destination by wire. This par
ticular message was received at Saga
ponack, Long Island, one of our sta
tons. and relayed to Birmingham by
Postal telegraph.
Received at 2oO4-2OO6 First Avenue, Biz
mingham Ala.
N Y. Du. 81 via Marconi, Sagapo-
mack, 7.27 p. m. s. S. Deutschland March
Is, 1906: w. A. Ryan, Hillman hotel, Biz
mingham Ala.-About two hundred and
fifty miles out from New York; very
rough weather, but everything going fine.
Tell every one that II they could see
Marconi as it is equipped on this ship
they would buy at once.
GEO. II. MUNROE
I'VE now have seven stations on Amer
lean soil and twenty-three on Canadian
soil. reaching from the White Star line
dock in the harbor of the city of New
York to Venison island In Labrador on the
North, and as far east as Cape Race and
Sable Island. These stations transact a
business of from $500 to $500 a day each
and the steamship stations transact an
equally large amount. The company's
revenues have had most gratifying in
crease. In 1904 the rate was 700 per cent
and in 1905 the rate was 100 per cent
indications lead me to believe that the
year 1906 will show about 1000 per cent. in
crease.
"These facts concerning the commercial
development of the Marconi system are
not generally known and many people are
impatient because we have not placed
wireless stations in all the important cit
les and because we have not developed as
rapidly as they think we ought they for
get that 1t was s years after the first