Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1892 — Telephone on the Battle Field. [ARTICLE]

Telephone on the Battle Field.

Particulars of the’behavior of the field telephone syßtem In the French autumn manuevers have now been published. Magneto telephones were used, as no delicate microphone or battery is required with them. The transmitter was held In the hand and the receiver was affixed to the “kepi.” Combined receivers and transmitters were also employed. A bare bimetallic wire 0.6 millimeters in diameter was unrolled from a drum and laid out of harm’s way on hedges, branches, walls, and in trenches. A line twenty-three kilometers long was thus laid, with the addition of ten posts, in five hours; speech was good, and the whole was taken up again in an hour. During a sham fight a cavalry division passed over a long line without interrupting the communication. A bayonet stuck in the ground made a good earth; so did the body of a cavalry horse if the wire was attached to the bridle.

The census returns Just published show that in 1889, with the exception of the 7,000 fishing craft, the business men of the country owned 25,540 steamers, sailing vessels and unrigged craft, whose gross tonnage was 7,633,676 and whose estimated commercial value was $215,000,000. During the year these vessels carried 172,110,423 tons of freight of all kinds. The total amount paid in wages on these vessels was $37,000,000. Steam vessels are rapidly displacing sailing craft; 6,067 of all these vessels are run by steam, and their value is three-fourths of the value of all the craft enumerated. The theosophists, who know no more about the matter than the dreamers who have fixed three or four dates for the end of the world during the next ten years, tell us that “the present age,” whatever that may be, will continue 427,000 years. British oculists have decided that electric light is not injurious to the eyesight Wixd puffs up empty bladders; opinion, fools.