November 28, 1918] 



NATURE 



257 



ith 1 he sound, to hear ; « hili 



■ the speaking-tubi , 



much small' r s Is a fi om the 



speaker to a pai tii ulai listen* - al tin 

 Now during the p 



wireless telegraphy, and also in wireless teli - 

 phony, have been ver\ important, but as yel M is 

 not admissible to discuss them; besides, 015 subjeci 

 i> rather the future than the past. One matter, 

 . is within public knowledge, and that is the 

 . and still increasing amount ol news thai 

 thai appears under the heading 

 of "Per Wireless Press." indeed, wireless telegraphy 

 appears ting al last in what has always 



appeared to me to be its proper field, which is nol 

 so imii'h to communicate between our individual 

 and anothei :>> for the communication of intel- 

 over the earth, urbi et orbi — 

 to the city and to the world to borrow from the 

 famous wording of the Papal benediction from the 

 Si Peter's in Rome of bygone times. 

 No doubt maritime wireless communication between 

 ships, and between ship and short , hitherto its most 

 useful application, is another casi altogether, and 

 supplies a want that telegraphy by wire cannot meel 

 at all. With this we are already familiar, while the 

 use of win less as a voice that can speak simul- 

 taneously to points on every portion of the earth is 

 in some ways a more novel proposition. 



No doubt some persons who had* private wireless 

 stations of their own before the war used to get 

 time-signals from Paris from the Eiffel Tower, 

 and from Nauen in Germany; while a few of those 



mastered the difficulties of leading the Mors* 



b) eai were able to decipher wealhei reports 



from these places, as well as from our own Admiralty, 



in addition to general news from Poldhu, in Cornwall, 



and from oni or two other large stations. 



What 1 have in my mind, however, goes much 

 farther than this. In London tape- and column- 

 printing telegraph instruments operated by wire, thai 

 sporting, Parliamentary, and general news, 



have long been familiar objects in clubs and hotels, 



come a portion of our dail) life. Now there 

 i- no reason al all why similar printing instruments, 

 which he who runs may read, should not be operated 

 by wireless means, not onl) in London and othei 

 large odes, but also throughout the country, 01 even 

 throughout the world. Special transmitting stations 

 using different wave-lengths could send out the mes- 

 s.i:v -, while separate printing machines, tuned each 

 nd to the wave-length ot a particular trans- 

 mitter, at each required point, would receive and 

 record them. No connecting wires, costlj .is regard-. 

 both tii- muI upkeep, would be required, 



bur onl) suitable aerials al i u h transmitting and 

 1 g station. 



woul.l bi nea ssai • to pr< ven'l 

 wireless i , i a i elling as 

 they do through thi thi enormous 



[86,000 mil' d, recognise no inter- 



national boundaries, the) would I universal. 



Thus arises a lilting opportunit) for the League ol 

 Nations. For the distribution of news to the Press 

 nothing could be better or mo cal, while 



win clubs, hotels, and private 

 5ho 1 thus supplied 



with the latest int< Iligenee. For in wireli 

 graphv it costs no more to send signals to a thousand 

 stations than to a single one, and there is 

 practically no limit to the number ol the stations 

 thai can simultaneously receive signals from a singli 

 transmitting station. To some this sketch of the 

 al distribution of news to all and sundry mat 

 itic, Inn it is not reall\ so al all ; for, al 

 2561, VOL. I02] 



l no larger than Western 



I e and the British Isles, it is well within the 



range of practicability at the present time, and only 

 requires a little working out to arrive at the besl 

 Igl ni' nis. Nor is this all ; spoken words of the 

 human voice have already been intelligibly transmitted 

 by wireless across the Atlantii between the L'nited 

 - and Paris a feal that has never been accom- 

 plished by cable; and there is no reason that 1 am 

 aware of why, in the near future, we should not 

 have a public sp.aker, say in London, in New York, 

 or anywhere, addressing bj word of mouth and 

 articulate wireless telephon) an audience of thousands 

 -all. red, maybe, over half the- globi 



Great things are at present being foretold as to the 

 marvels that we are to see in the way of the electric 

 distribution of energy throughout the whole country 

 from a small number of giant generating stations. 

 Indeed, the subject is considered of sufficient import- 

 ance to be mentioned in the Prime Minister's election 

 address, which in itself is surely a sign of the times. 

 The hope is held out that electric energy is thus to 

 be so cheap that it will supersede every other kind of 

 ., not onlv for driving our mills, our machinery, 

 and our railwa) trains, but also universally for cook- 

 ing, heating, and other domestic purposes. Great 

 improvement over our present parochial methods — 

 according to which Parliament, in its wisdom, has 

 divided up the country into an enormous number of 

 absurdly small municipal electrical areas, which are 

 far too limited in consumption for any reasonable 

 economy to be obtained— is no doubt possible, but let 

 us not "be too sanguine. Some of the highest and 

 most experienced authorities are of the opinion that 

 the limits of economical generation and distribution 

 are already being reached in the case of some of our 

 larger systems, and that when we get above tens of 

 thousands of horse-power the step to hundreds of 

 thousands does not effect more than a small per- 

 ci ntage of saving, either in first cost or in cost of 

 winking. , 



There is also the question of material for the dis- 

 tribution conductors. Excepting silver, which of 

 course is out of the question, pure copper, which is 

 almost as good as silver, is the best electrical con- 

 ductor we know of, and the amount of copper in the 

 world is of course, limited. No doubt by raising the 

 electrical pressure, the amount of energy conveyed 

 through a given conductor with a given loss can be 

 largely increased. Bat, again, there are limits to 

 the endurance of insulating materials that can be 

 obtained at a reasonable cost, though perhaps there 

 is more obvious scope in regard to ibis than as regards 

 increasing the conductivity of conductors. In a recent 

 speculative article of American origin by Dr. J. A. J- 

 vVoddell, I notice that the writer prophesies the dis- 

 of an allov of ten limes the conductivity of 

 copper, but, so far as w al present know,_ all alloys 

 have a worse, and not a better, conductivity than 

 their elementary constituents; and though so far 

 no special investigation has evei 

 ; that this is a natural law thai cannot be 

 ,,.. s tni, , mversely, there are no data to show 

 :,, .„ improvement can be looked for in tins direction. 

 True Or H. Kamerlingh Onnes, of Leyden, not long 

 ago showed that.bv reducing the temperature of metals 

 to the temperature of liquid helium, or to within 

 less than r of the absolute zero ol temperature, 

 or more than 450 below zero Fahrenheit, thesi 

 practically all resistance, and become nearl perfect 

 conductors. Under these conditions an electric cur- 

 rent, once started by an electromoti applied 

 1 ! mercury ring, was fou ■ f" 1 

 hours after the electromotive fori had bee n removed 



