Wireless Telegraphy.
The great advantages of wireless telegraphy in navigation. Ships
are enabled to communicate with shore during voyages. Messages
received and sent at any time en route. Collisions at sea reported
at once. Belated steamers cause no anxiety.
In the old-fashioned days of sails and steam, when a vessel
left port and passed out of sight, she instantly became a whole
world in herself. Communication had been severed with the outer
world. The condition of a sailing vessel during a calm was a
picture of helplessness. Steamships were more self-reliant--they
at least controlled their own course. But both classes of ships,
whether propelled by sail or steam, once out of sight of land, were
temporarily shut out from the busy world.
During these enforced absences upon an ocean voyage, great events
frequently happened of which passengers, officers and crews were
necessarily ignorant of. At the [Shut Out of the World.] termination
of a long or short voyage, the first news could only be obtained from
the pilot-boat which met the approaching vessel far out at sea. War
might be on the eve of declaration as the vessel left port, battles
might be fought, the enemy might be vanquished and even peace declared
and a knowledge of all these events would only reach the tardy mariner
upon the arrival of the vessel at her port of destination.
Such a condition of affairs, often the cause of the deepest anxieties
on the part of ocean travelers, might answer well enough for the
days of the Crusaders, when kings of Great Britain went to Palestine
to battle for the Cross, and never again heard from home in three
or four years' time. When Napoleon, that meteor of the nineteenth
century, left the shores of la belle France for the rocky desolation
of St. Helena, it was over a year before he received any news from
Paris. The same conditions ruled in 1899. Steam had rendered ocean
voyages shorter and more punctual. But the main difficulty still
existed. Passengers on our ocean-liners during a voyage knew as
little of occurrences at home as those who traveled in the days
of the Vikings and Crusaders. In this respect (as in many others),
the world in 1899 was no better off than in the days when the Roman
legions landed on the shores of Britain. The nineteenth century and
the centuries before Christ were upon equal footing in this respect.
Many splendidly equipped steamships, with colors flying and bands
playing left port in the old days of sails and steam, with multitudes
waving their adieux and heartily wishing them God-speed and were never
again heard from. No communication was possible in those days between
land and vessels at sea. Sometimes they were [Into the Jaws of Death.]
doomed in the cold embrace of an iceberg; an occasional collision sent
hundreds of souls to their final account; fire, always dreaded on the
ocean, caused many to suffer the horrors of thirst and starvation; the
ocean claimed its victims in many dreadful forms and no tidings ever
reached home of the fate of loved ones, because communication between
ship and shore in the "good old days" of 1899, was impossible. This
supreme difficulty had not yet been overcome in 1899, and the defect
was universally regarded as being a most deplorable one. The only
communication ever maintained between vessels in mid-ocean and the
main shore in the nineteenth century was done by cable-ships, while
actually engaged in laying an ocean cable. The Great Eastern was
the first steamship to lay claim to this distinction, when in 1867,
her officers fished up and brought to the surface the broken Atlantic
cable and the great news was flashed from ship to shore.
Vessels in these days of the nineteenth century only too often
left port never again [A Very Backward Age.] to be seen by mortal
man. Loved ones plunged into a watery grave, locked in each other's
embrace, and none survived to tell the fearful tale. Communication
with shore was unknown in the vaunted civilization of the nineteenth
century. The fate of the Naronic, of the White Star line, looms up in
evidence. Not a whisper was again heard of her after she left port. The
City of Glasgow in 1854 sank in Neptune's pastures. Four hundred and
eighty souls went down in that brave ship. No hint, however slight,
was ever heard of her. The Ocean Monarch, the Pacific of the Collins
line, and the ill-fated City of Boston, all suffered fates that none
but the day of judgment can reveal.
This confession of weakness, this serious drawback of the nineteenth
century, which added to the terrors of those "who go down into the
great deep," was fortunately not shared by the advanced sciences
and arts of the twentieth century. Wireless telegraphy contributed
almost as much to the comfort of ocean and ærial navigation as
electricity. Telegraph poles that rendered hideous some of our most
beautiful avenues and the antiquated ocean cables were entirely
relegated into oblivion. The former went into the scrap heap, while
the latter found their way into Davy Jones' locker.
Long before 1999 wireless telegraphy was employed on all vessels
on ocean, river and lake. Instant communication was at all times
maintained between ship and shore. [It Opened a New Era.] War vessels
at foreign stations made their daily reports in 1999 to the Navy
Department in the State of Mexico. All other navies of the world
enjoyed the same facilities. Relatives telegraphed to their families
and friends from vessels in mid-ocean. It was quite common to receive
a brief message from an Atlantic liner two thousand miles east of
Sandy Hook, as follows:
On board Electrical Ship Manhattan. }
Latitude 50 N., long. 30 W. }
Dear Henry:--Got over being seasick. Baby and nurse doing
nicely. Had strawberries and cream for dinner. Dodged an iceberg
and struck a whale, yesterday. Love to all. Will wireless from
Paris.
Ethel.
Overdue vessels in 1999 gave no anxiety in that era of progress. If
a shaft broke the home office was at once notified that the vessel
would be several days behind her schedule time in arriving at her
destination. If caught in a fog or obliged to move at half speed,
the information was immediately lodged on shore. In fact it even
became possible to navigate vessels from the shore.
In 1982 the strange experiment was made of navigating a large ocean
electric ship [Sailed his Ship from Land.] from Manhattan (old N. Y.),
to Queenstown. The name of the vessel was the City of Sidney. After
the pilot had dropped off at the Hook, Captain Sherman, of the Electric
Belt Line of vessels, remained in his private office in the forty-third
story of Anti-Trust building on 59th street, Manhattan, and issued
his commands by wireless telegraph to the first officer of the City of
Sidney. Reports reached the captain every six hours, giving the exact
latitude and longitude and the ship's course was directed from the
captain's private office on 59th street in the city of Manhattan. In
other words it was the city of Manhattan that kept the City of Sidney
on the move, so to speak. The ship's course, conduct of the crew, the
health of the passengers, the reports of passing electrical vessels,
the velocity of wind and other details of navigation, were communicated
to Captain Sherman, whose orders were given and obeyed as readily
as though issued from the bridge or deck of the City of Sidney. When
that vessel arrived off Queenstown to land the U. S. of the A. mails,
Capt. Sherman in 59th street ordered half speed and finally stopped
the electric engines. Of course, while navigating his immense vessel
across the ocean and remaining seated in his office at home, Captain
Sherman could not assume his place in the saloon at the head of the
table. Wireless telegraphy could not, with all its ingenuity, satisfy
one's appetite at the sumptuous dinners served on board the City of
Sidney. But this demonstrated to the world in 1982 that with wireless
telegraphy commanders could remain in their office on shore and sail
their ships to foreign ports in perfect safety. This was done in 1982
just as easily as the old style train dispatcher controlled far away
trains in 1899 while seated in his own office.
The Marconi system of wireless telegraphy, when perfected in 1920,
employed the Hertzian magnetic waves, which are identical with the
waves of light. Whenever an electric spark is made to leap from one
electrode to another, one of these waves is created. The Marconi
instruments for sending and receiving are tuned to each other and
are then invulnerable to the attack of waves of different lengths.
These rays of electricity are reflected and directed in a given
direction like rays of [A Marvelous Invention.] light. An electric
circuit with a key, gives the basis of the Marconi system. This
circuit runs through a spark coil with an oscillator to produce
continuous electric sparking so long as the circuit is kept closed
by the key--and from this the sparking wires run out of doors to the
pole from which the messages are sent.
One end of the wire is placed in the earth and the other is elevated in
the air. The height to which it is carried determines the distance to
which the messages may be sent. The operator presses his key as in
ordinary telegraphing, making his alphabet in dots and dashes. As
the waves shoot out and reach the distant station, the filings
in the tube cohere and the current passing through them draws up
the armature of the relay magnet. This closes the circuit of the
recording instrument. It is broken constantly by the tapper and
instantly re-established by receiving waves.
The towers employed in 1920 for the transmission of wireless messages
were very high. The manifest advantages of the system were apparent
and long before 1930 wireless telegraphy came into general use. The
new system proved the death-knell of telegraph poles, as well as
ocean cables. Old telegraph stock faded in value like the morning
mist. The supreme importance of communicating with vessels while at
sea alone guaranteed the success of the wireless system.
Wireless telegraphy proved to be one of the crowning scientific
achievements of the twentieth century, but the ambition of scientists
[Chatting with the Boys in Mars.] in 1969 knew no bounds. In that
year they were busy sending messages to Mars, utilizing starbeams for
that purpose. For thirty long years they repeated the same messages or
signals to Mars every night. In 1999 the canalers up in that bright
Yankee planet had not yet responded but hope was still entertained
that some sign of recognition might yet be secured from the Martians.
Telescopes in 1999 had been vastly improved. The network of canals in
Mars became far more distinct to the human eye. The moon, our nearest
neighbor, looked as though only one mile away. Neptune, the giant of
the heavens, grew on more intimate terms with our mother Earth, but
on Mars was centered the greatest attention. Fervent were the hopes
that Martians would acknowledge the ceaseless signals sent from earth.
The growth of the electrical machine industry in 1999 was enormous. The
United States of the Americas led the world in their manufacture. The
dawn of this vast industry was already manifest, even in 1899. The
capital invested in electrical industries in that year was as follows:
Invested Capital.
928 electric railways, aggregating 14,850 miles, $883,000,000
2,838 electric light central stations, 335,486,518
25,000 private electric lighting plants, 87,500,000
Power transmission (750,000 motors in use), 150,000,000
Electrical apparatus in mining, 125,000,000
Telegraph, telephone, &c. 600,000,000
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Total, $2,180,986,518
In 1999 nearly a third of the entire capital of the vast American
Republic was invested in electrical interests of some form or
other. The export trade of American machines became stupendous. The
world demanded only the American make; no substitutes would answer.
American pluck and brains proved the lever that Archimedes, the Greek
mathematician, so long sighed for. American brains moved the world.