The Forrest City times., 1906-05-04
MODERN TOWER OF BABEL
Great Steel Tower Which Is Being Erected in Germany for Use of
 Wireless Telegraphy.

A wireless telegraph station whose action is expected to cover the ea- tire European continent is being erected by the German government on the most northwestern point of the country. ct Norddeich. in Frisia. It's great steel tower, 2l3 feet high. will send out electric waves that can be detected by receivers located anywhere within radius of at least 1000 miles; and in all probability it will be able 10 receive and transmit over still greater distances. This is compared by electricity to the Tower of Babel. It says in an editorial article:
 The ancient Chaldeans.. to whom philologists are apt to give the palm for the legend of the Tower of Babel. could never. in their widest flights of ina eination. have comprehended what We HOW all regard as prosaie fact, the existence of steel tower sending and receiving all languages through invisible space. AS regards the simile that such an undertaking will be like the Tower Of Babel. the fact that t will receive and transmit messages from Germany. Switzerland, France. Great Britain, Denmark. Italy. Sweden, Norway. Spain. the Balkan Peninsula and Russia, is sufficient evil denee on that score II is believed that operation will be extended as far as Saragossa, Naples and Cetinje to the south; as far as St. Petersburg in the east: in the north it will be a voice from the silence to the people of Drontheim and Naryik and 10 the east German vessels homeward bound can send their tidings to Norddeich while still on the Atlantic far beyoni Lands End The proposal made in the beginning to erect these epoch making towers on the Island of Bor- kun was dismissed. ani choice made of the seaport Nord1eich of the Frisian islands instead This town is the railway terminus of the Prus- sian system and better adapted through it's general accessibility to the work in prospect"
 The entire plant we are told will be completed by November. The foundations have already been laid and the iron sHperstrleture is being put ID as rapidly as possible. At tn base of the towers will live the off cials and the employees. who will oper- ate the telegraph probably enough t5 form a considerable community The writer concludes:
 The projection of this scheme and it's specialization means the duplica- tion of the same idea by the various governments with whom it will keep .n touch.
 Thus the strange picture Is pre- sented of Germany undertaking a titanic task-yet l task whiea in spite of it's enormousaess is considered a necessary consequence of the changed conditions in the transmission of in teiiigenee manifested in the last ten years. National wireless stations arg the correct idea. as far as methods of international communication are deemed desirable The Cnly inquiry that seems natural under the clreum- stances is that relative to the use of high mountains. Along the Atlantic coast We find the great Appalachian range, with it's hoary peaks. For gov ernment purposes. secret or otherwise. these high mountains are the one great means of meeting the difficulties of sympathetic or selectiye signaling. All nations should be thus equipped, if for no other reason. at lea5t for the sake of being able to feel independent of the submarine cable. which any sudden cataelysm at the bottom Of the sea may disrupt and destroy"