January 1 1, 19C0] 



NA TURE 



243 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY. 

 History of Wifeless Telegraphy, 1838-1899. By 

 J. J. Fahie, M.I.E.E., &c. Pp. xvii + 325. (Edin- 

 burgh and London : William Blackwood and Sons, 



1899) 



% Telegraphic sans Fils. Par Andre Broca. Pp. vii + 



202. (Paris : Gauthier-Villars et Fils, 1899.) 



[X TIRELESS telegraphy is a subject of absorbing 



VV popular interest at the present time. Its sensa- 



ional possibilities are being gradually demonstrated ; 



a.nd just now a special popular interest arises from its 



obvious applicability to the amelioration of the state of 



isolation of our beleaguered garrisons in South .\frica. 



Telroraphy without tangible means of communication 



however, proved an attractive field of inquiry almost 



Volta's discovery of the electric current a century 



And when in later years the submarine cable 



ne a success, the high earning power, and the high 



ilso, served both to attract and to stimulate many 



iiors and scientific enthusiasts in their search for a 



OS .cm of telegraphy which would dispense with the 



mostly cable. 



The first of the two books here noticed contains matter 

 of great interest, and is written by an authority on the 

 history of telegraphy. Mr. Fahie has unearthed with much 

 diligence a great mass of almcst, or quite, forgotten 

 experimental work (largely relating to efforts based on 

 the conducting power of water). This, together with 

 descriptions of the more recent work of Preece, Lodge, 

 Marconi and others, he presents to the reader chiefly 

 in the form of copious extracts from original papers. 



One is able to gain an idea from this book of the im- 

 mense amount of experimental work continually being 

 carried out ; to be noticed possibly in the current liter- 

 iiure of the day, and then to be forgotten save when 

 >oine striking practical success, such as that of Marconi, 

 ^:,ills forth a historian who will rescue such work from 

 oblivion. 



For a frontispiece, the book has a collection of small 

 but excellent portraits of " the arch builders of wireless 

 telegraphy," from Oersted to Marconi ; and at the end 

 arc gathered a number of extracts embodying the views 

 <A Lodge, Henry and Rowland, followed by Prof Branly's 

 <:lassical paper on the behaviour of imperfect contacts to 

 electrical radiation, and by a most interesting letter to 

 Ml. Fahie by Prof. Hughes, describing his hitherto un- 

 published work on what are now called "coherers," which 

 lie was led to carry out after his invention of the micro- 

 i)lione in 1877. The book concludes with a reprint of 

 ^' iiconi's patent of 1896, which shows how extensive his 

 eriments had been before he came to England. 

 1 these appendices are worthy of the most careful 

 ling in the light of recent events. In fact, the book 

 IS with interesting matter from cover to cover. 

 A hile the work is certainly opportune, yet a careful 

 isal brings us to the rather opposite conclusion that 

 also premature. It is opportune, for a work on wire- 

 telegraphy from an authority like Mr. Fahie is very 

 ome now. It is premature, in that the subject is 

 nging so rapidly that a consistent account is im- 

 sible. For Marconi's present arrangement, though 

 ved at after the most careful investigation, yet seems 

 be still verv empirical, as for example in the almost 



arbitrary choice of the kind of electric waves or of co- 

 herers, out of the infinite vhriety of both which are 

 possible. It is still to be hoped that some other set of 

 waves and some different type of coherer may be found 

 equally available, and furnishing and receiving signals 

 more amenable to projection in any required direction. 

 Success in localising the electric waves is vital to the 

 extended adoption of wireless telegraphy, yet Mr. Fahie 

 is of course unable to include an account of this part of 

 the subject in his book. 



The author has adopted a chronological arrangement. 

 No other seems in fact possible. Yet we think that many 

 would prefer the accounts of mere conduction experi- 

 ments to be kept separate from etheric telegraphy. 

 Among other anomalies of arrangement we may mention 

 that Lodge's work on wireless telegraphy is described 

 under the general title of " G. Marconi's Method " 

 (pp. 227-235). 



Apart from obsolete expressions and unfortunate 

 quotations from public utterances (as, " the Rontgen forni 

 of telegraph," p. viii.), the author's own language is not 

 always precise. Thus " a rapidly revolving rheotome 

 which broke up the current into a musical note" (p. 152), 

 though perhaps expressive, is not accurate. Again, the 

 reference to Hertz's "experimental proof of the hitherto 

 theoretical fact" (p. 183), of the identity of the velocity 

 of propagation of light and of electric waves, is hardly 

 felicitous. Some of the author's elucidations of theory, 

 also, are not perhaps as clear as they might be. An 

 edition prepared at greater leisure, however, would no 

 doubt be free from such passages. 



The most obvious criticism of the boo4c relates to the 

 disjointed reading which arises from the author's very 

 frequent insertion of extracts. But this criticism Mr. 

 Fahie meets half way, for in his preface he "seems to 

 hear the facetious critic exclaim, 'Why, this is all 

 scissors and paste,' " and he rejoins, " So it is, much of 

 it"; and he further adds that "so is all true history 

 when you delete the fictions with which many historians 

 embellish their facts." If this rather pessimistic view 

 be adopted, then it would seem that a readable history 

 is an impossibility. .\t all events, we certainly think 

 that the constant change in literary style, both in cha- 

 racter and.quality, combined with the obsolete scientific 

 expressions in which many of the extracts are couched, 

 does not contribute to make the book readable. Indeed, 

 we would describe the book as an excellent and well 

 arranged store of material for writing a book on wireless 

 telegraphy. It may be, however, that the attempt to 

 render a history readable is to be deprecated. 



The author has dedicated his work to Sir William 

 Preece. Its later chapters bear witness to the striking 

 way in which a Government department has so con- 

 sistently and actively encouraged advance and scientific 

 investigation wherever results of importance to its own 

 work were to be hoped for. 



There remains to state in conclusion that Mr. Fahie's 

 book is certainly the best, if not the only work of 

 reference which has appeared on the history of wireless 

 telegraphy. 



For a lucid and thoughtful exposition of the theory of 

 the propagation of electric waves we can cordially 



