Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 123, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1917 — AND RONGESS ONCE EAUGHED AT WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AND RONGESS ONCE EAUGHED AT WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY

rlboutforty-fiveyears agoa Washington dentist who had experimented with wireless and suspected its marvelous possibilities applied for the right to incorporate a company. The comedians in our national legislature had a lot of fun over the “crackbrained” idea and joshed the newspaper which supported the inventor—»

_—JBrest-, dent Wilson had signed A JTS the congressional war H resolution on April 6an Aww® officer of the navy department, on orders from Secretary Daniels, went Mx.bL'/W to tlle naval wireless station in Washington, /C 3 sat down before an in--7 strument, and sent crackling out to the four corners of the earth and over the surface of the Seven seas the word that the imperial government of Germany and the United States of America had come to grip of battle. On every American Warship and at every American naval or military station, some scores and ipmp t hou sn nri s of miles a way, r eee Iving antennae tingled with the news as it came sputteringly but quickly to its aerial destination. " A few. djjys later another governrnent order was set forth declaring that the authorities at Washington had decided to take over control of the wireless facilities of the nation and that all privateapparatus for sending and receiving must be demolished. Police officials all over the land got busy at once, and thousands of amateur telegraphers found themselves without avocation the next morning. In New .York ‘city alone 998 wireless stations were silenced, an index of the enormous growth that aerial telegraphy had achieved.' These two instances witnessing the indispensability of this mode ef—communicationmake difficult of belief perhaps the statement that it is just 45 years ago that the science of telegraphing through the air without wires was for the very first time brought to the attention of the congress of the United States,, and that the application for permission to incorporate a -company to try out the “crackbrained” scheme so tickled the risibilities of the honorable representa-' fives that the proposition was very “nearly laughed out of court. Eventually, however, the idea seeming harmless, if entirely mad, the desired authority was given, and Mahlon Loomis, a dentist of Washington, ,D. C., was told- that- he could go ahead and do anything of the kind he liked. So In a spirit of entire levity the lower house accorded the initial recognition to what has developed into one of the most marvelous and most serviceable of all manifest work of genius. The name of Guglielmo Marconi, the Italian, is inseparably associated with wireless telegraphy in these days, and as is so often the cage the men who blazed the trail are forgotten. So “Mahfoir _ Ta)omTs“an<rrmany“nke“Tilfii have passed into the obscurity of memory, their achievements receiving only scant mention even in the books which give the history of the science as it developed.The Washington dentist was, however, a pioneer in one respect which has reserved for him a modicum of fame; he first of all scientists proposed to use the present method of conducting the electric impulses by means of long masts and even erected a structure for the purpose on the banks of the Potomac river in Maryland, where he for a time carried on experiments. Therefore the records mention him in a long list of illustrious men as one who really did something to advance the cause of wireless investigation, g-There are few men now living who recall the debate in which the leading men of congress took part when Representative Bingham of Pennsylvania Introduced a resolution to incorporate the Trftomis Aerial-Telegraph company. The brilliant speeches, the flowery periods in which the wits of the house

to ridicule, ns set forth in the Con- “ gressionsil Record. givi* a falr Tdeii of how serrously the prop, isnl was taken. One of the chief points of the'debate was made upon the question of "Whether the feSblutloti shonld be referrod to the committee on foreign affairs of the house or to the committee on commerce, the decision being rendered in favor of the latter body after a discussion which was carried on with burlesque solemnity for some hours. It is Interesting to note that the -presiding officer on that occasion was none other than Representative James A. Garfield of Ohio, who later became president of the United States. Incidentally there Is a strange similarity in the conduct of the house • •their.- ns rrlarcTl , d , n~Tfrr~Rrrrmrh"7rnd in its actions in the present day. Representative Conger, read an article from the since defunct Sunday Chronicle of April 14, 1872. which, despite the fact that it was laughed at by congress, seems to have had a realizing sense of grace in considering the project of wireless. The serious attempts of the Sunday Chronicle to plead the cause of wireless was the signal for a chorus of presumably humorous remarks somewhat like those leveled at the two absurd Wright boys, Orville and Wilbur, when they gave up a profitable bicycle business out in Dayton, 0., some years ago and started fussing around with a ridiculous contraption that they ~fiy a dfke grf ar bird, whereas all the wiseacres thereabouts knew it was all plumb foolishness and couldn’t be done. Everybody knows what a ghastly failure the Wrights made of flying. The butt of most of the jokes hurled at the Loomis invention was Representative Holmes of Indiana, who had helped Mr. Bingham introduce the resolution, and who was one of,the few to believe that wireless communication was really possible. He made a speech amid a chorus of groans, jeers and interruptions of all sorts, representa..tLveS—continually insisting upon read-, ing articles from publications not so farseelng as the Sunday Chronicle, and all poking fun at “Wireless Loomis.” Mr. Bingham also had his turn, an<f~ his speech, like the others, appears in the Record, although the disorder in the house made it impossible of hearing for most of the members. He, too, could see the possibilities of wireless, and stoutly maintained his position. Mr. Bingham’s extreme earnestness carried with it a measure of conviction, and the unruly house at the end accorded him some measure of serious attention. Whether It was owing to _hbr-speech- or—a certain feellng-that it would do no harm to let Loomis try Ids stunt, since -it could not hurt any-thing.-atany rate the resolution, was passed a few nights later and the dentist-electrician started in to form the company to exploit his idea. In many respects Doctor Loomis’ plans for wireless development were more ambitious than any proposed before or since. He not only aimed at communication by telegraphic methods, but he likewise expected to utilize the power for lighting and heating purposes. In July, 1872, he secured a patent from the United States patent office which so far as is known was the first ever granted of. its kind. The text of it is interesting. “Be It known that I, Mahlon Loomis, d(ffitiSt,ofWas'hlngron.*Districtof-Co--lumbla,” it says, “have invented or dlscovered a new and improved mode of telegraphing and of generating light, heat and motive power, and I do hereby declare that the following is a full description thereof: “The nature of my invention or discovery consists, in general terms, of utilizing natural electricity and establishing an electrical current or circuit for telegraphic and other purposes, without the aid of wires, artificial bat-teries-or cable tn,form_such electrical current, and yet communicate from one continent of the globe to another. “As in dispensing with the double wire” (which was first used in telegraphing) “and making use of but one. substituting the earth instead of a wire to form one-half of the circuit, so I now dispense with both wires, using the earth as one-half the circuit and continuous electrical element tar above the ehrth's surface .for the other part of the circuit. I also dls-

pense with artificial batteries, but use the free electricfty of the atmosphere, co-operating with that of the earth to supply the electrical dynamic force or current for telegraphhxg" airtt"' for otherusefulpurposes, such as light, heat and motive power. “As atmospheric electricity’ is found more and more abundant when moisture, clouds, heated currents of air and other dissipating Influences are left far below and a greater altitude attained, my plan Is to seek as high an elevation as practicable on the tops of high mountains and thus penetrate or establish electrical connection with the atmospheric stratum or ocean overlying local disturbances. Upon these mountain tops I erect suitable towers -and apparatus to attract" ttiF-etectTtrv ity, dr in other words to disturb the electrical equilibrium and thus obtain a current of electricity, or shocks, or pulsations, which traverse or disturb the positive electrical body of the atmosphere above and between two given points by communicating it to the negative electrical body in the earth below to form the electric current.” After declaring that the inventor did not utilize any new keyboard or alphabet, the patent concludes with the assertion that he claims: “The utilization of natural electricity frqm elevated points by connecting the opposite polarity of the celestial and terrestial bodies of electrlcity at different points by suitable conductors, and for telegraphic purposes relying upon the disturbance produced in the two electro-opposite bodies (of the earth and the at-, mosphere) by’ an interruption of the continuity of one of the conductors from an electrical body being indicated upon its opposite or corresponding terminus, and thus producing a circuit of communication between two without an artificial battery or the further use of wires or cables to connect the co-operating stations.” The fate of the Loomis invention was not —long—In--being determined. His company was formed and experiments were carried on, but the (in this day) manifestly impossible scheme was soon found to be impracticable, despite the several advanced ideas presented, and the proposition presently went to smash, adding another name to the great roll of disappointed and disillusioned pioneers. Although Loomis was the first man to get recognition in the American congress for wireless discovery, men had inklings of the possibility of the thing 50 years before him. Abqut the first to take up the work was Doctor Steinheil of Munich, who in 1838 evolved some of tlie basic features of. the science. Morse in 1842 saw that telegraphing without wires would some day be. possible, but he was too busy with tlie wire method to spend any time on the other plan. The credit for the successful application of the principles of wireless communication of course belongs to Marconi, who has had the wit and the resource to employ the work of his predecessors in the field and actually to produce the now wonderful result. Marconi’s real accomplishment is of comparatively recent date and it owes much even to the dreamings of Doctor Loomis, not to mention the experimenting of such eminent minds as J. Trowbridge in 1880, Sir W. H. Preece in 1882, Willoughby Smith, Sir Oliver Lodge, Alexander Graham —Bell, Thomas A. Edison and numerous others who contributed to the general result. The employment of the Hertzian waves, discovered by Hertz in 1886 and 1887, by Marconi and then the Italian’s Invention of the antennae, for the detection of electric Impulses, resulted finally in the commercial wireless ol today, which in seeming perfection is still but In its infancy. Greater marvels are yet in store for the world t han even the direction of torpedoes by wireless and the sending of messages from New York to Honolulu, and than even wireless communlcation between fighting airplanes and ground stations far back of the battle lines. Yet these accomplishments are a far cry from that day in 1890 when two British cruisers at maneuv* ers were able to communicate with each other by telegraph and the world thought that the summit of wonders