The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-11-26
SCIENTISTS STUDY
 MYSTIC FORGE FOR
 COMMERCIAL USE
By HOLLAND

New York, November 25.-(Special-) Five years were devoted by Roy weagand, who is the chief engineer Of the Marconi Wireless company. to re-. search work with intent to discover if possible the hereto>fore hidden law of nature which has so operated as to prevent the perfect utilization of the wireless system for transmission Of messages. Now it is announced that his patience and intelligence have made it possible for him to say that while he may not have discovered the actua, law any more than it has been possi- ble even for the greatest men or scl- ence to discover that electricity really is. nevertheless he has obsrved the manifestations of that law and has devised apparatus whereby It can pc controled and it's banful effects upon wireless communication he hereafter eliminated.
 Some months ago Lee de Forest, who has been. with patience, working out inc problem which when solved will make it possible to transmit telephone communications from America to Europe or over long distances. felt Justified in saying that there remains only one detail to work out and that he is convinced that he will be able to perfect this detailtso that not later thar five years hence, possibly as soon as two years from this time, tele- phonic communications across the ocean by the utilization of the Hertziaii waves will be an accomplished fact.
 It is not known positively whether MT. Weagand's discovery and appaIa- tus will make it possible to communi- cate by means of the Hertzian waves the human voice for as long dis tance as that which separates the. limited States from Europe, But the inference is that if his discovery. and the apparatus which utilizes it have now perfected the Marceni system they may also serve to provide telephonic communications as well as teiegraphic.
 WHAT EDISON DISCOVERED
 It is not generally known that Edi- son years ago, even before he labored night and day for years upon the prob lem of the division of electric current served from a central station so as to provide incandescant lights, ob- served certain manifestations of | mystic law of nature which he termed ..etheric force" Occupied as Edison was with other important matters he did not carry on investigation into this mystic law and perhaps did not realize what its discovery would mean for the rapid communication of intelli-
 
 gence without the use of wires.
 few wears later Dr. Hertz discov- cred and took heed of the very mani fiesta tion which Edison had noticed. These are now known as the Hertzidn waves. Electrical impulse given at any point Hertz discovered, creates all electric wave which will move ever onward through the atmosphere. per- hans circumnavigating the globe. Hertz, however. did not pursue his dis covery to the point of commercial ad- vantage It remained, for Sir Oliver Lodge, and later for Marconi. to utilize Hertz.s discovery of law heretofore unknown so as to make it through the invention of proper apparatus available for stupendous commercial uses. But there were defects even in the Marconi system due to the operation of the mystic law which Weagand seems now to have discovered or fixed, so that he is able to devise apparatus whereby