The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-01-29

by a firm belief in its eventual prac-
teal realization, began TO experiment
He succeeded in establishing the fact
of an all-pervading medium. Faraday
was followed by James Clark Maxwell,
who, In 1861, systenlatized Faraday S
theory Of light, theory which means
that light, electricity and magnetism
are transmitted by the same ether at
an identical rate of speed.
The next step toward wireless COM
munication was made in the study OF
wave motions. Hertz was the first 10
employ the term electric radiation
He used the term, Collins points out,
to describe the waves emitted from a
Leyden jar They have been called
Hertzian waves ever since. Before
Hertz's discovery Professor Joseph
Henry of Washington, d. c., had Sic
ceeded in magnetizing needles at dis
lance. He used FRACTIONAL machine
on the floor of his house and magne-
tized needles on the floor below. This
was sending electrical power through
the air with practical demonstration
of its passing.
With the discovery that the air, was
a means of conveyance for electricity
came the effort TO produce electric dis
charges. Sparks We're produced as
early as 1902, but they were so small
that they could be barely seen with the
naked eye. In 1745 came the discovery
and development of jar in which
electricity could be stored-the Leydel
jar. Then the sparks began to fly. and
with them the certainty among scien-
tific investigators of the phenomenon
of electricity, that the passing Of a
spark into the air meant a displaCe-
ment of air and a consequent agitation
that might be directed and used.
The sparks were made to grow, until
Elihu Thompson in 1877 produced them
sixty-four inches long.
Guitard, in 1859, observed in dust
ladened air. when electrified, the parli-
cles of dust cohered into the form of
strings. Here was the first practical
hint of a path through the void. A S.
Marley, in 1866, tried experiments with
loose mass of dust containing con-
Quoting material as if to blaze a high
way through the wilderness of ether.
In 1879 Professor Hughes sent wire
less signal a mile distant, using q mi
crophOnic carbon point as a detector
of the waves. Hertz, i'm 1888; devised
a metal ring for the detection of induc-
ton. In 1894 the question of sending
signals by the Hertz radiator and re-
ceiving them with HIS detector was one
that engaged the minds of scientists,
Lodge employed a device by which he
discovered what he called the coherer
This was named as the result of his
observation that the action of cleo
tricity on metal filings was conference,
that is, clustering of the particles &C
gether.
All the rest of the story of how the
air was haTnessed and made to serve
the purposes of mankind in its commu-
nicatiOn from continent to continent
is crammed in the last eventful de-
cade. Marconi as a boy was interested
in the Hertzian waves and their con-
troll. In his teens he experimental in
the country places of his parents, near
Pontecchta, in Italy. The first prac-
teal system of generating and trans
hitting electric waves through the air
was worked out by him in 1896. In 1891
he managed to transmit the letter S
from Cornwall to Newfoundland In
1902 the steamship Philadelphia kept
in communication with the Marconi
station at Poldhu when OUT 1500 niles.
At the end of that year communication
between the continents was estab-
lished, but it remained until yesterday
to have it in operation so completely
in accord with the demands of speed
and accuracy that it became a distinct
commercial and economic fact in the
life of today