342 SCIENCE OF HOME AND COMMUNITY 



it is superior to the ordinary telephone in the distinctness 

 and fidelity with which sounds are reproduced. 



Talking over long distances. In 1907 speech was trans- 

 mitted from Massachusetts to Washington, D. C., a distance 

 of 400 miles. In May, 1915, this was increased to 1000 

 miles, the distance from Long Island to Georgia. Later in 

 the year communication was made between Washington, 

 D. C., and the Eiffel tower, Paris. The climax was reached 

 in the same year when a message spoken into the telephone 

 receiver at Washington was heard at San Francisco, a dis- 

 tance of 2500 miles and also at the Hawaiian Islands, a 

 distance of 4900 miles. This is farther than conversation 

 has been carried on by means of the wire telephone. Science 

 had found a means by which a person speaking in an ordinary 

 tone of voice could have this reproduced so that its owner 

 could be recognized at a distance equal to one fifth the cir- 

 cumference of the globe. If the sound waves themselves 

 could have traveled that distance, it would have required 

 more than six hours, but the electric waves covered the dis- 

 tance in a small fraction of a second. 



This message went out not only to the west but in every 

 direction ; so that any one within a radius of 4900 miles of 

 Washington could have heard the message had he been 

 provided with the necessary instruments. This message, 

 then, could have been heard in all the great cities of Europe, 

 in Paris, London, Berlin, Rome, and Petrograd, and in 

 Rio Janeiro in South America, or at the North Pole. It 

 would have been possible for people in the United States 

 to talk with their friends in the trenches in France, if both 

 had been provided with suitable instruments. 



Combination of common and wireless- telephone. Another 

 remarkable thing that has been accomplished is to connect 

 up the wire telephone with the wireless so that they can 

 both be used. A man in New York City talked into an 

 ordinary telephone receiver as far as Washington by wire, 



