Popular Science Monthly 



795 



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around the artillery scrap-heap, de- 

 tached a few parts from an old 

 musket, cut some strips from a 

 brass "75" shell-case, bought a 

 small piece of detector-crystal, and 

 in a short time was sending a 

 messenger out soon after midnight 

 ever>' night to take to the men in 

 the first lines the day's news. 



At midnight of the date of the 

 inter\iew the communique was a long 

 one, being the first news of the 

 French offensive in Picardy which 

 had just begun. A messenger took 

 the glatl tidings back to his brothers 

 in the trenches. Then the electrician 

 adjusted the instrument so that it 

 intcrcepttxl messages sent out by 

 some German portable field wireless 

 apparatus. The German spark is 

 pitched very high and musical, while 

 the French is ilull and staccato. A 

 message sent out from an aeroplane 

 was intercepted also by the crude 

 but practical receiving instrument. 



For military purposes the wireless 

 is not used as much by the French 

 as by the Germans. The French, 

 wherever possible, use the telephone 

 instead; and along some parts of 

 the front they have established 

 underground lines impregnable to 

 shell fire. The French have closed 

 automobiles equipped with complete 

 telephone switchboards, so that tem- 

 porary exchanges may be established 

 at short notice wherever they may 

 be needed. Where the portable 

 wireless is used on the F"rench front 

 it is carried on a motor-tricycle 

 affair so that it may be taken very 

 close to the first lines. 



In the recent ofifensive on the 

 Somme electricity was a very potent 

 aid to the French success. The 

 village of Dompierre, which before 

 the offensive was in the hands of 

 the Germans, had been mined by 

 the French from one extremity to 

 the other. The principal excavation 



