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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 3a

The Wonders of Electricity

The Wonders of Electricity.

Many years have passed since men ceased to wonder at the telegraphy and they are now becoming quite familiarised with the marvels of wireless telegraphy. Yet how many of them try to understand something of the process whereby messages can be sent by a transmitter and correctly recorded by the receiver, page 3 although the two stations are thousands of miles apart, and have no visible connecting medium between them ! Of what interest is it to them to be informed that the atmosphere which surrounds the earth is interlaced with channels of ether—that mystic something which is lighter than the lightest gas—and that these lines of ether are the unseen courses along which the electric current is conducted for the purposes of wireless telegraphy? They are too much engrossed in material things to give thought and study to ascertaining something of the. mystery of these sublimer forces—these Laws of God, which form a more vital part of the mighty universal scheme of Creation than all the other forces with which we are more or less familiar.

Scientists are now beginning to realise that it is the invisible that is the real, and that the seen is only the effect of invisible causes. We see this exemplified in wireless telegraphy, and what, in my opinion, is more wonderful still, is that other marvel of Scientific attainment—wireless telephony.

This remarkable discovery of the twentieth century is to-day but in its infancy. The experiments, however, which have been so successfully conducted in Europe and America indicate that the possibilities which lie before it are well nigh boundless. This planet of ours, in fact, seems destined to be reduced to the dimensions of a drawing-room respecting the freedom with which we shall be able to converse with each other in the years that are to be. Space would then be annihilated, and the sense of separation would almost cease to exist.

To show that this conception is not necessarily the imaginative conjecture of an idle fancy, one of the more prominent workers engaged in perfecting and extending this wonderful process recently discussed the future of wireless telephony in terms like these—"The day will come when copper wires, gutta-percha covers, and iron bands will only be found in museums; when a person who wishes to speak to a friend, but does not know where he is, will call with an electrical voice which will be heard only by him who has a similarly-tuned electrical ear. He will cry : 'Where are you V And the answer will sound in his ear : 'I am in the depths of a mine, on the summit of the Andes, or on the broad expanse of ocean.' Or perhaps no voice will reply, and he will know that his friend is dead."

This certainly reads very much like romance. So did wireless telegraphy when it was first mooted and so have clone many other, at one time, incredible Scientific achievements. Romance, in the realm of Science, has a very peculiar knack of transforming itself into a prosaic and indisputable reality, and this experience may be page 4 repeated in the actual realisation of what to-day may seem impossible in regard to this predicted development in wireless telephony. It is, in short, just about time the word "impossible" was erased from the vocabulary of the English language. Most intelligent men and women have now reached a stage of mental expansion enabling them to recognise that nothing is impossible, and seeing that Science is so rapidly and completely conquering space we ought to frame our minds for the reception of any fresh development in any realm, no matter how sensational and how unexpected such developments may be.

Mankind has been amazed by Science time after time in the past—more particularly in recent years—and these surprises will doubtless continue to be sprung on the world as "knowledge grows from more to more." To be able to reproduce the human voice over long distances without the aid of wires would have seemed miraculous to a less-enlightened generation, and if our grandmothers had been told that this development was in store they would certainly have declared that it could only be rendered possible by the performance of a miracle. Ignorance, in fact, always sees the miraculous in an inexplicable circumstance. But it is only miraculous because of our lack of knowledge of those profound Laws of Nature through which the effects are produced.

As men grow in knowledge of God and His wondrous works, miracles diminish, and consequently it is literally true that the age of miracles has passed—not because there are not things happening to-day equally marvellous as most of the events described as miracles, but because the mind of man has developed; because his knowledge has increased in obedience to the divine law of progressive revelation, and because he is beginning to understand something of those higher natural forces which have been in active operation since the beginning of Time, for "with God is no variableness, neither the shadow of a turning."

God's laws are from everlasting to everlasting, and in all their multifarious operations never vary a hair's breadth from their set and beneficent purposes. They are immutable, inexorable, eternal, and the Reason of Man—which has, unhappily, been too long dethroned, but which is at last breaking through the fettering bonds of superstition and tradition—is now beginning to realise that no other arrangement of natural forces could possibly be reconciled with the existence of an Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omni-present Creative Mind.

Passing on, then, to further wonders of these latter days, we come to the transmission of pictures—photographs and scenes—by the use of the telegraphic wire, and in this connection lifelike page 5 portraits have been reproduced by this inscrutable process. The two stations were far apart, but the result was almost faultless, and now we learn that even the wire has been dispensed with and that pictures are to-day actually being transmitted by the wireless method. Wherever the necessary stations are erected, it is claimed, as one of the advantages of this discovery, that portraits of criminals can be faithfully flashed across space, and even the faintest outlines of their finger prints. That is truly wonderful enough, but it seems to be almost equalled as a marvel by the fact that a telegraph operator in London can dispatch a message to Paris, where the electric current agitates a wire connected with one of the Parisian newspaper offices, sets the linotype machine in motion, which machine automatically sets up the telegraphed matter in type and presents it ready for the press, with virtually no one doing any work but the man manipulating the apparatus in London !

Compared with this achievement we can read with complacency that ships are now being installed with an invention for submarine signalling whereby a vessel, many miles from land, in a dense fog, can be informed of her position by signals given with a bell from the lighthouse near the mainland. The warning sound travels under water, strikes the receiver on the vessel, and the captain knows exactly where he is, although previously he might have been in a hopeless haze concerning his bearings. This discovery will obviate many wrecks and may in course of time be the means of saving thousands of precious lives. We are also ceasing to view with our former sense of wonderment the spectacle of a ship sailing through the air, and even the announcement that a speed of 50 or 60 miles an hour has been attained, scarcely induces us to raise our eyebrows.

Another invention naturally leads us to inquire—"Is the telegraph instrument, with its code of dots and dashes, doomed ?" One may well ask the question after learning about the telewriter, by which it is possible to write a message which is reproduced simultaneously miles away in fac simile writing. This wonderful machine has already been brought to such a state of simplicity and perfection that it is in use in several London offices, and before long will probably be used as largely as the telephone is to-day. As soon as the sender's pencil is taken up, the pen of the receiver, miles and miles away, comes out of the ink, and moving as if by magic, traces exactly what is written or drawn at the other end. A message can be signed, and the signature is just as convincing as if it were the original Amongst other things it is proposed to use the telewriter for advertising purposes, and very shortly we may page 6 expect to see writing without hands being done in shop windows in order to attract the passers-by.

But if all these things are to be considered almost inconceivable in their bewildering ingenuity, what about the Lynnoscope—an invention by means of which it is claimed that anyone will be able to see around the world ? We have not heard much about this discovery yet. Mr. John Wellesley Lynn is the inventor, and he declares he has proved by experiment that the instrument will allow people in London to see their fellow beings in America instantaneously; that it will reflect any written message to the most distant place, and that it will enable any person to see right through any human being or solid substance as if they were not there.

"The Lynnoscope consists of three distinct instruments," says the inventor—"(i) the operator, (2) the transmitter, (3) the receiver. All that is necessary in sending reflections any distance overland is to fix a transmitter on the highest available point—a hill-top or a tower—and the image is correctly reflected on the receiver. It will be possible to present an actual reflection of the Derby as it is being run, to an audience at a matinee at any London theatre. I do not mean a living cinematograph picture, he goes on, "but an actual reflection of the event as it is in progress. I have secured perfect reflections at a distance of 186 miles, and I have photographed scenes 80 miles away. I experimented at Buckingham Palace, and the Lynnoscope made a lady who was present apparently invisible. Sir Thos. Lipton and others have interested themselves in the invention, and have written expressing themselves perfectly satisfied with the experiments. I have been at work on this invention for nine years, and was working all the time on a pre-conceived scheme. A curious accident, however, helped me to the solution. I was working in my study with my apparatus, and, on looking through it, saw what appeared to be a hole in place of the floor. I found to my surprise that I could see right through carpet and floor to a transmitter in the cellar. I have been awarded a diploma at the Inventions Exhibition for optical discoveries, and am willing to show what I can do before any committee of Scientific experts."

According to this, there will be no necessity for us presently to go to the old country to see our friends. By looking through this instrument in Australia we shall be able to see them going to church on Sunday, and on the Monday morning we shall have the unspeakable joy of watching them "hanging out the clothes!" Again I ask—" Have we room for the word 'impossible' when contemplating even the most sensational predictions which Science has yet to fulfil?" Does not the whole trend of Scientific attainment clearly demonstrate that anything and everything is possible page 7 Let us, then, dismiss that word from our minds and be prepared for any wonder that has yet to be revealed!