PUZZLERS FOR WISE HEADS.
Answer to Puzzle on [Page 371].
16.—
- Alexander the Great.
- Charlemagne.
- Queen Elizabeth.
- Catherine of Russia.
- Marie Antoinette.
- Cleopatra.
INDIAN WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY.
Ages before the day when Marconi succeeded in establishing his wireless telegraphy, the Indians of North America carried on a system of signalling by smoke rings and fire arrows.
The settler's wife, looking out from her lonely cabin on the prairie, at the band of roving Indians, learned to note and understand the Indian smoke signals, puffing lightly into the clear blue of the prairie sky. These smoke signals are always sent in puffs or rings, so that there may be no chance of mistaking them for a camp fire. The puffs are made by covering a fire with a blanket for a minute. Then the blanket is lifted quickly, and the smoke ascends in a ring or puff. The blanketing process is repeated until a column of rings warns the Indians far and near to 'Look out,' or 'Be on the watch.' Two smokes built close together mean, 'Camp here.' Three smokes signal 'Danger.'
Signalling at night was carried on by means of fire arrows. Their meaning was like that of the smokes. The fiery trail left by the arrow in its flight through the darkness was the same signal as one smoke. The others tallied, and a flight of several fiery arrows said, 'The enemy are too many for us.'