But because a way was found to couple the wireless telephone with the wire telephone, the new wonder has great possibilities as a supplement to our existing system. Before so very long it may be possible for an American business man sitting in his office to call up and converse with a friend on a liner crossing the Atlantic. The advantages of speaking between ship and ship as an improvement over wireless telegraphy in time of need are obvious. A demonstration of the part this great national telephone system would play in the country's defense in case of attack was held in May of 1916. The Navy Department at Washington was placed in communication with every navy-yard and post in the United States, so that the executive officers could instantly talk with those in charge of the posts throughout the country. The wireless telephone was used in addition to the long distance, and Secretary of the Navy Daniels, sitting at his desk at Washington, talked with Captain Chandler, who was at his station on the bridge of the U.S.S. New Hampshire at Hampton Roads.
Whatever the future limitations of wireless telephony, there is no doubt as to the place it will take among the scientific accomplishments of the age. Merely as a scientific discovery or invention, it ranks among the wonders of civilization. Much as the tremendous leap of human voice across the line from New York to San Francisco appealed to the mind, there is something infinitely more fascinating in this new triumph of the engineer. The human mind can grasp the idea of the spoken word being carried along wires, though that is difficult enough, but when we try to understand its flight through space we are faced with something beyond the comprehension of the layman and almost past belief.
We have seen how communication has developed, very slowly at first, and then, as electricity was discovered, with great rapidity until man may converse with man at a distance of five thousand miles. What the future will bring forth we do not know. The ether may be made to accomplish even more wonderful things as a bearer of intelligence. Though we cannot now see how it would be possible, the day may come when every automobile and aeroplane will be equipped with its wireless telephone, and the motorist and aviator, wherever they go, may talk with anyone anywhere. The transmission of power by wireless is confidently predicted. Pictures have been transmitted by telegraph. It may be possible to transmit them by wireless. Then some one may find out how to transmit moving pictures through the ether. Then one might sit and see before him on a screen a representation of what was then happening thousands of miles away, and, listening through a telephone, hear all the sounds at the same place. Wonders that we cannot even now imagine may lie before us.
APPENDIX A
NEW DEVELOPMENTS OF THE TELEGRAPH
By F.W. Lienan, Superintendent Tariff Bureau, Western Union Telegraph Company
The invention of Samuel F.B. Morse is unique in this, that the methods and instruments of telegraph operation as he evolved them from his first experimental apparatus were so simple, and yet so completely met the requirements, that they have continued in use to the present day in practically their original form. But this does not mean that there has not been the same constant striving for betterment in this as in every other art. Many minds have, since the birth of the telegraph, occupied themselves with the problem of devising improved means of telegraphic transmission. The results have varied according to the point of view from which the subject was approached, but all, directly or indirectly, sought the same goal (the obvious one, since speed is the essence of telegraphy), to find the best means of sending more messages over the wire in a given time. It will readily suggest itself that the solution of this problem lies either in an arrangement enabling the wire to carry more than one message at once, or in some apparatus capable of transmitting messages over the wire more rapidly than can be done by hand, or in a combination of both these principles.
Duplex and quadruples operations are perhaps the most generally known methods by which increased utilization of the capacity of the line has been achieved. Duplex operation permits of the sending of two messages over one wire in opposite directions at the same time; and quadruples, the simultaneous transmission of four messages, two going in each direction. Truly a remarkable accomplishment; but, like many other things that have found their permanent place in daily use, become so familiar that we no longer pause to marvel at it. These expedients constitute a direct and very effective attack on the problem how to get more work out of the wire with the existing means of operation, and on account of their fundamental character and the important place which by reason thereof they have taken in the telegraphic art, are entitled to first mention.
The problem of increasing the rapidity of transmission has been met by various automatic systems of telegraphy, so called because they embody the idea of mechanical transmission with resulting gain in speed and other advantages. The number of these which have from time to time been devised is considerable. Not all have proven to be practicable, but those which have failed to prove in under actual operating conditions none the less display evidence of ingenuity which may well excite our admiration.
To mention one or two which may be interesting on account of the oddity of their method—there was, for instance, an early device, similar in principle to the calling apparatus of the automatic telephone, which involved the turning of a movable disk so that a projection on its circumference pointed successively to the letters to be transmitted. Experiments were made with ordinary metal type set up in a composing-stick, a series of brushes passing over the type faces and producing similar characters on a tape at the other end of the line. In another more recent ingenious device a pivoted mirror at the receiving end was so manipulated by the electrical impulses that a ray of light reflected from the surface of the mirror actually wrote the message upon sensitized paper, like a pencil, in a fair handwriting. In another the receiving apparatus printed vertical, horizontal, and slanting lines in such manner that they combined to make letters, rather angular, it is true, but legible.