In 1903 wireless telegraphy had reached such a development that the transmission of news messages was attempted in March and April of that year. But the service was suspended, owing to defects which manifested themselves in the apparatus, and in the meantime a new station in Ireland was erected. But there was no cessation of the practical experiments carried on, and in 1903 the Cunard steamship Lucania received, during her entire voyage across from New York to Liverpool, news transmitted direct from shore to shore. In the meantime intercommunication between ships had been developed and the use of wireless in naval operations was recognized as a necessity.
Various improvements from time to time were made in the aerial wires, and in 1905 a number of horizontal wires were connected to an aerial of the inverted cone type previously used. The directional aerial with the horizontal wires was tried at Glace Bay, and adopted for all the long distance stations, affording considerable strengthening of the received signals at Poldhu stations. Likewise improvements in the apparatus were effected at both trans-Atlantic stations, consisting of the adoption of air condensers composed of insulated metallic plate suspended in the air, which were found much better than the condensers where glass was previously used to separate the plates. For producing the energy employed for transmitting the signals a high tension continuous current dynamo is used. An oscillatory current of high potential is produced in a circuit which consists of rapidly rotating disks in connection with the dynamo and suitable condensers.
The production of electric oscillations can be accomplished in several ways and waves of the desired frequency and amplitude produced. Thus in 1903 it was found by Poulsen, elaborating on a principle first discovered by Duddell, that an oscillatory current may be derived from an electric arc maintained under certain conditions and that undamped high frequency waves so produced were suitable for wireless telegraphy. This discovery was of importance, as it was found that the waves so generated were undamped, that is, capable of proceeding to their destination without loss of amplitude. On this account they were especially suitable for wireless telephony where they were early applied, as it was found possible so to arrange a circuit with an ordinary microphone transmitter that the amplitude of the waves would be varied in harmony with the vibrations of the human voice. These waves so modulated could be received by some form of sensitive wave detector at a distant station and reproduced in the form of sound with an ordinary telephone receiver. With undamped waves from the arc and from special forms of generators wireless telephony over distances as great as 200 miles has been accomplished and over shorter distances, especially at sea and for sea to shore, communication has found considerable application. It is, however, an art that is just at the beginning of its usefulness, standing in much the same relation to wireless telegraphy that the ordinary telephone does to the familiar system employing metallic conductors.
On the spark and arc systems various methods of wireless telegraphy have been developed and improved so that Marconi no longer has any monopoly of methods or instruments. Various companies and government officials have devised or modified systems so that to-day wireless is practically universal and is governed by an international convention to which leading nations of the world subscribe.
One of the recent features of wireless telegraphy of interest is the success of various directional devices. As we have seen, various schemes were tried by Marconi ranging from metallic reflectors used by Hertz in his early experiments with the electric waves to the more successful arrangement of aerial conductors. In Europe Bellini and Tosi have developed a method for obtaining directed aerial waves which promises to be of considerable utility, enabling them to be projected in a single direction just as a searchlight beam and thus restrict the number of points at which the signals could be intercepted and read. Likewise an arrangement was perfected which enabled a station to determine the direction in which the waves were being projected and consequently the bearing of another vessel or lighthouse or other station. The fundamental principle was the arrangement of the antennae, two triangular systems being provided on the same mast, but in one the current is brought down in a perpendicular direction. The action depends upon the difference of the current in the two triangles.
Wireless telegraph apparatus is found installed in almost every seagoing passenger vessel of large size engaged in regular traffic, and as a means of safety as well as a convenience its usefulness has been demonstrated. Thus on the North Atlantic the largest liners are never out of touch with land on one side of the ocean or the other, and news is supplied for daily papers which are published on shipboard. Every ship in this part of the ocean equipped with the Marconi system, for example, is in communication on an average with four vessels supplied with instruments of the same system every twenty-four hours. In case of danger or disaster signals going out over the sea speedily can bring succour, as clearly was demonstrated in the case of the collision between the White Star steamship Republic and the steamship Florida on January 26, 1909. Here wireless danger messages were sent out as long as the Republic was afloat and its wireless apparatus working. These brought aid from various steamers in the vicinity and the passengers were speedily transferred from the sinking Republic. On April 15, 1912, the White Star liner Titanic, the largest ship afloat, sank off Newfoundland, after colliding with an iceberg. Wireless SOS calls for help brought several steamships to the scene, and 703 persons from a total of 2,206, were rescued. On October 9, 1913, the Uranium liner Volturno caught fire in mid- ocean, and her wireless calls brought ten steamships to her aid, which, despite a heavy sea, rescued 532 persons from a total of 657. Again, on November 14, 1913, the Spanish steamship Balmes caught fire off Bermuda, and at her wireless call the Cunard liner Pannonia saved all of her passengers—103. The Titanic horror led the principal maritime nations to take immediate steps to perfect their wireless systems, and the installation of apparatus and operators soon became a prime requisite of the equipment of the world's shipping. Wireless telegraphy has been developed to great efficiency in all the leading navies, and powerful plants are installed on all warships. The United States, Great Britain, and Germany, most noticeably, have established shore stations, by which they can "talk all around the world" from any ship or station. In operation secrecy is most important. For in the navy practically all important messages are sent in code or cipher under all conditions while in commercial work the tapping of land wires or the stealing of messages while illegal is physically possible for the evil disposed yet has never proved in practice a serious evil. The problem of interference, however, seems to have been fairly solved by the large systems though the activity of amateurs is often a serious disturbance for government and other stations.
Despite the progress of wireless telegraphy it has not yet supplanted the submarine cable and the land wire, and in conservative opinion it will be many years before it will do so. In fact, since Marconi's work there has been no diminution in the number or amount of cables laid and the business handled, nor is there prospect of such for years to come. While the cable has answered admirably for telegraphic purposes yet for telephony over considerable distances it has failed entirely so that wireless telephony over oceans starts with a more than favorable outlook. But wireless telegraphy to a large extent has made its own field and here its work has been greatly successful. Thus when Peary's message announcing his discovery of the North Pole came out of the Frozen North, it was by way of the wireless station on the distant Labrador coast that it reached an anxious and interested civilization. It is this same wireless that watches the progress of the fishing fleets at stations where commercial considerations would render impossible the maintenance of a submarine cable. It is the wireless telegraph that maintains communication in the interior of Alaska and between islands in the Pacific and elsewhere where conditions of development do not permit of the more expensive installation of submarine cable or climatic or other conditions render impossible overland lines. At sea its advantages are obvious. Everywhere the ether responds to the impulses of the crackling sparks, and even from the airship we soon may expect wireless messages as the few untrodden regions of our globe are explored.
CHAPTER XL
ELECTRO-CHEMISTRY AND ELECTRO-METALLURGY.
In no department of the application of electricity to practical work has there been a greater development than in electro- metallurgy and electro-chemistry. To-day there are vast industries depending upon electrical processes and the developments of a quarter of a century have been truly remarkable. Already more than one-half of the copper used in the arts is derived by electrolytic refining. The production of aluminum depends entirely on electricity, the electric furnace as a possible rival to the blast furnace for the production of iron and steel is being seriously considered, and many other metallurgical processes are being undertaken on a large scale. We have seen in our chapter on Electrolysis how a metal may be deposited from a solution of its salt and how this process could be used for deriving a pure metal or for plating or coating with the desired metal the surface of another metal or one covered with graphite. In the following pages it is intended to take up some of the more notable accomplishments in this field achieved by electricity, which have been developed to a state of commercial importance.