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Show 1 WIRELESS TELEPHONY. s t An interesting series of experiments was car- I ried on by the Atlantic battleship fleet in its tour j of the world with the wireless teJephone, in order to test its usefulness as a means of eommunica- !' i, ' tion between boats at sea. The results are said to have been far from satisfactory; that the wire- .- less telegraph was much more useful and reliable, i and that the wireless telephone in its present, state of development was of little real service. The an- i . nouncement that the experiments with this latest i means of communication showed little to cneour- age the belief that the new system is practicable . Ij should not. however, be in the nature of a disap- I pointment. for the instruments are yet in a very j crude and rudimentary state of development. I The wireless lelegraph has proved its useful- I ncss ocean-going vessels; has proved beyond I pcrad vent ure the practicability of the apparatus in J times of the greatest stress and danger. A few j years ago this means .f communication would 1 also have been found wanting sadly to meet such j emergencies as that of the collision of the Re- I public and the Florida. f It is conceivable that within a few years such improvement will be made in the telephone as to I prove its distinctive value. The secret has been I discovered by means of" which sound may be trans- rnitted from one instrument to another through I the Hertzian waves, and the secret needs only dc- I relopnwnt.. So far, experiments have shown that I the telephone will not operate over nearly so grcafr j distances as the telegraph. And the telegraph yet I has many grave defects which only time and study h - can eliminate. Several inventors are actively at work in the endeavor to perfect the two system? of communication, and it would be presumptuous to say that either will eventually be dropped as. impractical. The one grear difficulty to be overcome over-come is the likelihood of interference with the transmission of either kind of message, and until th is is accomplished there is no great danger of the wireless supplanting present means of communication commu-nication on land. |