814 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1093 



ing, it is a local source of electrical energy 

 which stimulated by an electrical wave no 

 matter how feeble will give a perfect repro- 

 duction of that wave magnified to any ex- 

 tent that may be desirable. When the elec- 

 trical wave conveying speech from Arling- 

 ton to Honolulu arrived at Honolulu it was 

 perfectly exhausted and so feeble that its 

 action could not produce any perceptible 

 direct effect upon any instrument ever con- 

 structed by man. The electrical amplifier, 

 that is, the local electrical generator, then 

 threw in its wonderful work. Stimulated 

 by the feeble wave it reproduced it in a tre- 

 mendously magnified form without in any 

 way modifying its character. The man at 

 Honolulu, with the aid of the local ampli- 

 fier, not only heard the voice of Arlington, 

 five thousand miles away, but by the char- 

 acteristics of the articulation he recognized 

 the speaker : so perfect was the reproduction 

 by the amplifier ! In fact, we may say that 

 the electrical amplifier at Honolulu stimu- 

 lated by the waves coming from Arlington 

 created over again at Honolulu the articu- 

 late speech uttered at Arlington. Permit 

 me now to offer a suggestion which has oc- 

 curred to me often, and which, I think, may 

 be of some interest to the biologist and the 

 neurologist. We all know that the eye, the 

 ear, and other organs which are the instru- 

 ments of our perceptions are extremely sen- 

 sitive. For instance, the amount of energy 

 conveyed to the eye by light, which is just 

 visible, is almost incredibly small. The 

 question arises now, does that energy pro- 

 duce in us directly the sensation of light or 

 does it serve as a stimulus, only, for a local 

 source of energy, the sensatory organs, 

 which amplify it and reproduce it somewhat 

 in the manner as the electrical amplifier 

 reproduces, on a very much magnified scale, 

 the faint traces of a wireless wave? The 

 structure of the nervous system seems to 

 support this bit of speculation and I trust 



that you will not be too severe with me for 

 indulging in it. 



From this very rough sketch which I have 

 just drawn for you describing the present 

 state of wireless transmission it appears 

 that there are at present no obstacles in the 

 way of extending the distance of wireless 

 communication to any point on the earth. 

 And yet there are, and they are of the most 

 formidable character. These obstacles are 

 due to the interference produced by elec- 

 trical waves which are passing through the 

 terrestrial atmosphere continuously. One 

 may say that electrical waves are just as 

 numerous in the atmosphere as water waves 

 are on the surface of the sea. They are of 

 the same general character and probably 

 due to the same causes as the electrical 

 waves which interfere with our telephone 

 and telegraph lines and with power trans- 

 mission wires during a thunderstorm. 

 They are, in fact, the electrical tremors of 

 minute thunderstorms or of powerful but 

 very distant thunderstorms. We were not 

 aware of their presence until we attempted 

 to magnify the minute electrical wave com- 

 ing from a very distant signalling station. 

 An engineer of the American Telephone 

 and Telegraph Company who was on the 

 Pacific Coast and watched for the famous 

 telephone message from Arlington reports 

 that at times it was drowned completely in 

 a roar of musketry. This roar was due to 

 the action of the electrical waves produced 

 by the incessant electrical discharges in the 

 atmosphere. The wireless telegraph engi- 

 neer calls these discharges the "static" and 

 he hates them, because they interfere with 

 his business, but the physicist and partic- 

 ularly the meteorologist will hail their ap- 

 pearance with delight, because they offer 

 him a new and most unexpected aid for the 

 study of the activities in the terrestrial 

 atmosphere. 



All attempts up to the present time which 



