The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-03-23

Forty years ago if anyone had an
nounced that the human voice would
be carried miles through space he
would have been laughed to scorn.
When Alexander Graham Bell told
the people he had invented the wire
telephone, he was called a fool; and
when he exhibited the telephone, it
was derided as a useless toy.
Many stories are now related how
%influention and wealthy men refused
to listen to Professor Bell, much less
invest money in developing the in
vention, and thereby missed securing
millions of dollars.
Twenty years after the wire tel
ephone came into use the electricians
began to dream about sending mes
sages without the aid Of wire con-
nections. Many worked on the pro"
blem. Then came Marconi with the
wireless telegraph. Marconi tried
to interest people of means in his
own country, Italy, with his inven-
ton. The fifteen year old boy was
looked upon by his people as little
better than a lunitic. He went to
France. No one would listen to him.
In England fianciers laughed at
him. The engineers of the British
government, however, looked into his
plans, and Marconi was given a small
pension to develop his invention. To-
day the wireless telegraph is used
by every government in the world.
Marconi's invention started other
electricians to thinking and expert
menting. Among them was A. Fred
erick Collins, a young electrician Of
Philadelphia. If one could transmit
messages by telegraph without wires,
why not talk through space with a
wireless telephone? Young Collins
got busy. He studied and continued
to experiment. He invented the wire
less telephone, and secured the basis
patents on the invention.
The Collins wireless telephone may
be said to combine the principles of
the Bell wire telephone and Marconi
wireless telegraph. A remarkable
thing about it is that the voice comes
more distinct through the wirelss
telephone than through the ordinary
Bell telephone. The voice impulses
are carried by waves of the mole
cules of ether and are reproduced
by the mechanism of the receiver
wherever it may be within the zone
of the radical energy of the sending
telephone station. These sound
waves are called hertizian waves, af-
ter DR.. Hertz who discovered their
existence. They travel with a speed
of $4,000 miles a second, for indie
finite distance. Wireless telegraph
messages sent out from New York
have heen caught and read on the
Pacific ocean,.
The wireless telephone has been
so perfected that it will transmit the
human voice with perfect distinct
HESS AUU lille. "A plCl ulG Ill luG ISSUE
of February 16 of the Telegraph and
Telephone Age shows the inventor,
A. Frederick Collins, at Newark,
conversing with the Collins COM
pany's office in the Land Title build
ing in Philadelphia, 81 miles away.
The hertzian sound waves are not
in%terfered with or INSTRUCTED by walls
or mountains. A short time ago a
wireless telephone of the demonstra-
ton type was set up in the vault
office of the county clerk in the court
house at Orangeburg, and %conversa-
tions were carried on through the
foor foot walls of the vault, and g.
inch wall of the. room across the
hall from the vault. BY simply pres
sing a button in the far room the
bell of the phone vas rung in the
vault, through more than six feet
of solid masonry.
1t is said that with the same "a
cility the vibrations pass through
hundreds of feet of solid earth, into