Many splendidly equipped steamships, with colors flying and bands playing left port in the old days of sails and steam, with multitudes waving their adieux and heartily wishing them God-speed and were never again heard from. No communication was possible in those days between land and vessels at sea. Sometimes they were Into the Jaws of Death. doomed in the cold embrace of an iceberg; an occasional collision sent hundreds of souls to their final account; fire, always dreaded on the ocean, caused many to suffer the horrors of thirst and starvation; the ocean claimed its victims in many dreadful forms and no tidings ever reached home of the fate of loved ones, because communication between ship and shore in the “good old days” of 1899, was impossible. This supreme difficulty had not yet been overcome in 1899, and the defect was universally regarded as being a most deplorable one. The only communication ever maintained between vessels in mid-ocean and the main shore in the nineteenth century was done by cable-ships, while actually engaged in laying an ocean cable. The Great Eastern was the first steamship to lay claim to this distinction, when in 1867, her officers fished up and brought to the surface the broken Atlantic cable and the great news was flashed from ship to shore.
Vessels in these days of the nineteenth century only too often left port never again A Very Backward Age. to be seen by mortal man. Loved ones plunged into a watery grave, locked in each other’s embrace, and none survived to tell the fearful tale. Communication with shore was unknown in the vaunted civilization of the nineteenth century. The fate of the Naronic, of the White Star line, looms up in evidence. Not a whisper was again heard of her after she left port. The City of Glasgow in 1854 sank in Neptune’s pastures. Four hundred and eighty souls went down in that brave ship. No hint, however slight, was ever heard of her. The Ocean Monarch, the Pacific of the Collins line, and the ill-fated City of Boston, all suffered fates that none but the day of judgment can reveal.
This confession of weakness, this serious drawback of the nineteenth century, which added to the terrors of those “who go down into the great deep,” was fortunately not shared by the advanced sciences and arts of the twentieth century. Wireless telegraphy contributed almost as much to the comfort of ocean and ærial navigation as electricity. Telegraph poles that rendered hideous some of our most beautiful avenues and the antiquated ocean cables were entirely relegated into oblivion. The former went into the scrap heap, while the latter found their way into Davy Jones’ locker.
Long before 1999 wireless telegraphy was employed on all vessels on ocean, river and lake. Instant communication was at all times maintained between ship and shore. It Opened a New Era. War vessels at foreign stations made their daily reports in 1999 to the Navy Department in the State of Mexico. All other navies of the world enjoyed the same facilities. Relatives telegraphed to their families and friends from vessels in mid-ocean. It was quite common to receive a brief message from an Atlantic liner two thousand miles east of Sandy Hook, as follows:
| On board Electrical Ship Manhattan. |  |
| Latitude 50 N., long. 30W. |
Dear Henry:—Got over being seasick. Baby and nurse doing nicely. Had strawberries and cream for dinner. Dodged an iceberg and struck a whale, yesterday. Love to all. Will wireless from Paris.
Ethel.
Overdue vessels in 1999 gave no anxiety in that era of progress. If a shaft broke the home office was at once notified that the vessel would be several days behind her schedule time in arriving at her destination. If caught in a fog or obliged to move at half speed, the information was immediately lodged on shore. In fact it even became possible to navigate vessels from the shore.
In 1982 the strange experiment was made of navigating a large ocean electric ship Sailed his Ship from Land. from Manhattan (old N. Y.), to Queenstown. The name of the vessel was the City of Sidney. After the pilot had dropped off at the Hook, Captain Sherman, of the Electric Belt Line of vessels, remained in his private office in the forty-third story of Anti-Trust building on 59th street, Manhattan, and issued his commands by wireless telegraph to the first officer of the City of Sidney. Reports reached the captain every six hours, giving the exact latitude and longitude and the ship’s course was directed from the captain’s private office on 59th street in the city of Manhattan. In other words it was the city of Manhattan that kept the City of Sidney on the move, so to speak. The ship’s course, conduct of the crew, the health of the passengers, the reports of passing electrical vessels, the velocity of wind and other details of navigation, were communicated to Captain Sherman, whose orders were given and obeyed as readily as though issued from the bridge or deck of the City of Sidney. When that vessel arrived off Queenstown to land the U. S. of the A. mails, Capt. Sherman in 59th street ordered half speed and finally stopped the electric engines. Of course, while navigating his immense vessel across the ocean and remaining seated in his office at home, Captain Sherman could not assume his place in the saloon at the head of the table. Wireless telegraphy could not, with all its ingenuity, satisfy one’s appetite at the sumptuous dinners served on board the City of Sidney. But this demonstrated to the world in 1982 that with wireless telegraphy commanders could remain in their office on shore and sail their ships to foreign ports in perfect safety. This was done in 1982 just as easily as the old style train dispatcher controlled far away trains in 1899 while seated in his own office.
The Marconi system of wireless telegraphy, when perfected in 1920, employed the Hertzian magnetic waves, which are identical with the waves of light. Whenever an electric spark is made to leap from one electrode to another, one of these waves is created. The Marconi instruments for sending and receiving are tuned to each other and are then invulnerable to the attack of waves of different lengths.