Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-08-06

man called upon. He has made man
years study of the peculiar powers Of
the air. and can give on-hand an answer
to the most difficult technical questions
regarding the ether surrounding us. With
all this he is extremely modest and de-
clines to accept credit for anything ex-
cept where it may be forced upon him.
In connection with his work for the
navy Commander Robinson has written
a number of articles on wireless teles-
raphy. In one of them he traces early
experiments along this line. and shows
how they have led up to the wonderful
development of the wireless of today.
He says:
Park Benjamin. in his history of The
Intellectual Rise in Electricity traces
the idea of the telegraph as far back as
the fifteenth century. He wrote In 1898.
about the time that Marconi was making
his first experiments in wireless, but the
historical instances he refers to apply
more directly to wireless telegraphy than
to the Morse telegraph.
The experimenterS of the early days
hoped to achieve wireless communications
by means of sympathetic magnets instead
of tuned or sympathetic wires. John
Baptista Porta, for instance. in a book
on natural magic. published in 1889.
states that to friend who is at a far
distance from us and fast shut up in
prison. we may relate our minds by
means of two mariners compa sses hav
ing the alphabet writ about them
This idea seems to have survived. and
in 1890 German, Daniel Schwenter, I'M
dertook to make working apparatus on
this principle, Attention to the working
of the two compasses was to be called by
the receiving compass needle striking a
small bell placed in its path. 1t was a
necessary feature of these sympathetic
needles that both should have been strok-
ed by the same lodestone-we now say
tuned to the same wave length.
They even had promoters in those days
who were quite as eager to get something
for nothing as those of today. Benjamin
states that Calico dealt with them in
way which has served ever since as an ex-
ample to be followed by the skeptical
capitalist beseigned by the sanguine in
ventor. You remind me- Calico makes
one of his characters say, of man who
wanted to sell me a secret Of communica-
ton by the sympathy OF magnetized
needles so that it would be possible to
converse over a distance of 1900 miles.
l told him | would willingly purchase 1t
provided he would show me an expert
ment. and that it would suffice if l re-
NAMED in one room while he went into
another He replied that the distance was
too short to exhibit the operation of the
invention properly. so l dismissed him.
saying that it was not convenient for me
to travel just then to Cairo or Moscow
to test the matter but that If he would
go there himself 1 would remain in Venice
and do the rest
In 1916 this thing was whispered
through the world with some attention
credulous auditors readily believing it.
and the more judicious and distinctive
heads not discarding It The idea served
as a charming conceit for literary pur-
poses in the next century. The founda-
ton for real wireless telegraphy was laid
by Sir William Thompson and Messrs.
Maxwell and Hertz. The idea was ex-
pressed anew with more completeness by
Sir William Crookes In 1892 three years
before Marconi made working reality
of what until that time was only an idea.
"Crookes said. Rays of light will not
pierce through a wall. but electrical VI
brations of yard more will easily
pierce such media which to them will
be transparent. Here is revealed the
bewildering possibility of telegraphy with
out wires. or any other of our present
appliances. Granted few reasonable
in the realms OF possible fulfllment.'
Il 4
ITO show to what extent wireless teleg-
raphy has developed in the nineteen years
which have elapsed since Sir William
Crookes' prophecy was uttered Marconi
in the summer of 1895 demonstrated the
operation of his system Of four miles for
the British postal authorities, and June 2.
1894, he made application for patent,
which was granted about one year later,
July g 1897.
During 1897 Marconi successfully ex-
changed signals at a distance Of about