WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY. 
Balt. Kevin: 
“Wireless Telegraphy ” is undoubtedly an interesting subject to most people 
principally on account of its apparently bordering on the unknown. 
To the average mind there seems to be something marvellous—I might 
almost say unnatural—in the fact of communicating between places a thous- 
and miles apart without any visible connection. It is this invisibility that 
causes “‘ Wireless” to appear so wonderful. We see nothing very wonderful 
in the wires that, crossing mountain and desert. keep us in touch with our 
most remote outpost ; or in the cables that, lying deep in the ocean, enable 
continent to converse with continent ; or even in the telephone which most of 
us use daily. 
We fail to appreciate the wonder in these things—not so much because of 
our familiarity with them as from the fact that there is something tangible— 
something that we can see—connecting the points. 
In the case of Wireless Telegraphy there is also a connection, though an 
invisible one, in the all-pervading substance known as ether. This natural 
connection, unlike the telephone or telegraph wire that is liable to interruption 
at any point in its length from the most trivial cause, cannot, so far as we know, 
be interrupted by anything, though the apparatus by which we utilize it may 
be, and at times is. 
I do not propose to go very deeply into the subject, or to compare the merits 
of the many systems in vogue, but simply to run briefly through the history of 
“ Wireless,” note the progress that has been made, and give some idea of the 
methods of working. 
The advent of electricity in its application to telegraphy increased the dis- 
tance over which it was possible to communicate so enormously and was such 
a great improvement upon the methods of signalling in vogue previously, that 
for a time no other method was looked for; and scientists contented them- 
selves with improving telegraphic apparatus in order to obtain greater distances 
and more speed and accuracy in transmission, on these lines. 
The idea occurred, though, as to whether it might not be possible to utilize 
either the earth or water as a conductor in case of a breakage of the wire or 
cable. This idea resulted in the conduction and induction systems of Morse, 
Lindsay, Edison, Preece, and others, which were the first examples of what is 
now generally, though erroneously, described as “ Wireless’ Telegraphy. 
As a matter of facta vast quantity of wire is utilized in connection with every 
“ Wireless ”’ installation—in some cases more than would suffice to reach from 
the transmitting station to the receiving station. The term “ Wireless,” 
though, in its general sense—as meaning without connecting wires—serves 
