8 Transactions . — Miscellaneous. 



general by electric power. It is held by some that power- 

 stations located at regular distances along the lines could, by 

 the three-phase system, transmit energy at a more economical 

 rate than is obtained with locomotives. The question is indeed 

 a large one, but is bound to be threshed out to a finality. It 

 is like the question of change of gauge. The enormous 

 sacrifice of plant involved delayed that for many years, but 

 it had to be faced in the end, and so it may in this instance 

 also. 



During the last fifty years, but at somewhat long intervals, 

 the subject of wireless telegraphy has come before the public. 

 The first exponent of this, so far as I know, was a native of 

 Forfarshire, Mr. J. Bowman Lindsay. I well remember his 

 experiments in transmitting signals across the River Tay, 

 near Perth, during the year I left Home, now just forty-two 

 years ago. Later Mr. Lindsay essayed to transmit signals 

 between Dundee and the southern shore near Newport. His 

 method was by conduction, making the earth or water, in 

 fact, act as conductors between pairs of earth-plates on either 

 side of the space over which he wished to communicate. The 

 possibilities of wireless telegraphy under this system are 

 extremely limited and of no practical value, and it is not hard 

 to understand why the labours of Lindsay — one of the most 

 earnest and self-sacrificing workers in practical science the 

 country has ever known — were not taken up for actual use. 



Towards the end of the century the experiments of the 

 late lamented Hertz demonstrated the existence of a medium 

 which, ever since the days of Newton, was suspected as the 

 agent by which the laws of gravitation and light act in 

 force throughout all space. This medium has usually been 

 designated the "ether," and now the tendency of thought is 

 towards identifying it with electricity itself. Whether this is 

 so or not, it is certain that, in accordance with the number of 

 billions of vibrations or etheric waves per second, there appear 

 to our senses the component parts of light as separated by a 

 refracting prism. Beyond the range of vibrations which give 

 out the spectrum are the Rontgen or x rays, which have the 

 power of penetrating many otherwise opaque substances, as 

 the solar rays do glass. And, curiously enough, the Hertzian 

 waves are in frequency placed far below those of the dullest 

 red, the lowest of the spectrum, and yet they have the power 

 of vibrating through solids, or what we have hitherto been 

 calling solids. Had Hertz survived he most certainly would 

 have followed up his discoveries to the point of controlling the 

 despatch and receipt of the etheric waves, and by reinforcing 

 them by an ordinary relay effect what is now known as wire- 

 less telegraphy. This work has been taken up by Marconi, 

 Dr. Lodge, F.R.S., and others; but to Marconi seems to be 



