Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony

 I46 WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY What is this great change that can be coolly and pre- cisely forecast? Along what lines will these wonderful developments come? The answer is “wireless”—not the wireless of a Marconi or a De Forest, but the wireless of a Tesla—of “high potential magnifying transmitters”—of “nodes” and “loops”—of oscillatory currents that leave their conductors behind—the “wireless” of the day when a system is introduced enabling any person to reach any other on the globe, not simply through a spoken word or thought conveyed, but visually a perfect transmission of images which will enable one person to see another, as though that other were by his side—“wireless” of a time when the great operations of commerce and industry will be vitalized by huge wireless power stations, turning the machinery of factories, lighting cities, or sending swift aeroplanes and ships darting “to the farthest points of the earth. Of course, there may be something of the dramatic in such assertions, but they are founded upon scientific facts, and, if imaginary, are scientifically imaginary. The won- derful mysteries of oscillatory currents, whose natural me- dium is the ether, currents which object to being con- fined to wires and cables, and defy all ordinary laws; cur- rents that will melt masses of metal with the violence of an explosion, but yet pass through the human body with- out producing any sensation; currents that will instantly manifest themselves 2,000 miles away from their source, with no visible means of propagation, are the open sesame to the treasures of a wonderful future. There are many places in the world where water power is available capable of generating almost unlimited electri- cal energy. The present difficulty lying in the way of its utilization is the limitation of electrical transmission by wire, for not only is the cost of long lines of copper tre-