"Tele-Vision."

Press, Volume L, Issue 14982, 1 June 1914, Page 6

"Tele-Vision."

A London cable message published today states that Dr. Low, a London scientist, claims to have invented a method of transmission of light, enabling the production of images before the eyes of a distant spectator. There is nothing improbable in this statement, seeing that the problem of television is one at which inventors have been working for 6ome time. For somo years it has been possible to transmit photographs and handwriting by telegraph, and more recently Ernst Runnier, in Germany, and Fournier and Rignoux, in France, have got very near to solving the problem of transmitting a visual image, by electricity and reproducing it on a screen at a distance. Herr Ruhnicr, of Berlin, gave a demonstration of his tele-vision apparatus in 1909. A full description cf it will be found in "Twentieth Cen-

•'• tury Inventions,*' recently reviewed in "The Press." At the transmitting

station an image is thrown upon a screen, which is divided into 2- square sections, and behind each of these is a highly sensitive selenium cell. Each section controis a separate electric current, which is conducted to a corresponding section on a screen at the receiving station. By a process similar in principle to tho well-known mirror galvanometer tho fluctuations of the current .'ire made visible by a corresponding variation of light upon the receiving station. Only a small section of the apparatus was shown to demonstrate the principle; it was estimated that it would require about 10,000 miniature sections to produce a complete teie-vision apparatus, and the cost would bo £50,000. But the French inventors believe that they have devised a means of doing away with the multiplicity of connecting wires necessitated by the Ruhracr plan. It is interesting to add that the French inventors have made use of a discovery made by Faraday in 1845, when he discovered the connexion between light and electricity. In spite of being able to use one connecting wire, the French inventors' apparatus would be enormously expensive to construct in full detail. It remains to bo seen whether Dr. Low has been able to surmount this serious difficulty.

There is more than a touch of pathos in the news received from New York that Mr Glenn Curtis, the aviator, has successfully aoroplahed over a short, distance with a flying machine which was invented years boforo aerial naviga- 1 tion was thought practical and which "brought nothing but ridicule to its inventor, Dr. Samuel P. Langley, nbo died heartbroken when the funds for tlie continuance of his experiments were withdrawn. The Wrights were working at the problem at the same time and neither knew of the other's work. It was only nine days after the Langley machine had failed in the launching trials and was condemned as a failure that the Wrights made their first successful flight. That is a little less tha.i eleven years ago, and now we learn that there will be at least a hundred aircraft engaged, in this year's military manoeuvres in England.

Medical etiquette in Paris apparently differs from that in England, judging by the fact that a Parisian practitioner is inteiviewed at some length in the "Daily Telegraph" regarding bis "wax bath treatment" which bo prescribes in cases of rheumatism, .gout, sciatica, obesity, lumbago, neuralgia, and similar ailments. He claims that whilst all other thermal treatments are debilitating, a course of wax baths has, on the contrary, a tonic effect.

A medical correspondent of the "Telegraph" writes very favourably of tho now treatmont, pointing out that wax can be used at a much higher, temperature than water without injury to ths patient. It also has the advantage of applying a covering that retains the heat for many hours, so that treatment can now be practically continuous, whereas it formerly had to be inter-' mittent. He also thfuks the hot wax applications must have germ-destroying properties, and so form very effective coverings for ulcers, wounds, and other sores which have refused to heal cleanly.

[ W T ith commendable journalistic enterprise, the "Telegraph" conceived the quaint idea of interviewing a number of physicians in practice at well-known thermal resorts such as Bath aud Droitwich, and llu>re is a distinct strain of humour in the unanimity with which these gentleman refused to believe that any remedial effects were to bo obtained from wax which their pet thermal springs woro not capable of affording in more generous. measure. The Mayor of Bath is a medical man who is recognised throughout tho United Kingdom as an authority on tho Bath waters. His view was concise and epigrammatic that "wax will not make the waters wane." He was generous enough,- however, to admit that "It sounds a very excellent means of keepins the air away from a wound or painful joint, md .1 ouite believe it woidd be most useful in many* cases of gout where tho patient is unable to obtain the more efficient cure from the Bach waters." Similarly, readers of the

"Telegraph"' were assured from Droitwich tliat no fear was entertained there that "the Droitwich brine with :ts radic-tctlvity and unequali-d strength has any competitor in wax baths." A Harrogate physician, in our judgment took quite the best line when ho said be would investigate the new plan, and if he found it valuable he would recommend its introduction as an addition to the therapeutic treatment already employed.

The clever young American golfer, Ouimet, who has just won the French amateur championship, is the son of a French-Cau-dian, but calk himself

"We-met." It is to he feared, therefore, that several jokes based on the assumption that his name sounded something like "We-may" will not bear close examination. Ouime's was originally a golf caddy, and is now connected with a leading firm of dealers in sports implement-, etc.

Those who study coincidences will no doubt have noted two facts connected with the St. Lawrence disaster. Captain Kendall, who commanded the Empress of Ireland, was captain of the Montrose on which Crippen was captured, and the wreck must have taken place very close to the spot where Crippen was arrested, since the detectives went out in the pilot boat from Runouski to board the Montrose. A still more striking coincidence is that recorded in the cables, namely, that tho Storstnd is a sister ship of the Helvetia, which was sunk by the Empress of Britain (sister ship of tho Empress of Ireland) on tho same spot in the St. Lawrence nearly two years ago.

Some time ago we mentioned, by way of cheering up those good ives,"' who think that :«ew Zealand is "worse than Russia." some interesting and rather "shocki-- --fatistics concerning the Russian Government and the newspapers. For the eleven months ended November 20th last, 340 Russian journals had been "_dmini_trativeJy ' mulcted in a sum aggregating £13.00*)' for saying thing- winch the Government disliked. One Socialist paper was confiscated twelve times in two months, and another was being conducted by itthirteenth editor, the preceding twelve be:re in gaol. The New York "Post" quotes these figures to point the raor.il which they appeared to us to contain, and suggests that the I.W.W. orators ought to reflect whether America, in the matter of free speech, really is worse than Russia. Tt makes some observations which apply no less to the nosy I'.-ttremists here than to those .n America:—"We hold it. io be good policy to give these agitators all the chance they want to harangue, short of direct incitement to violence; but thi idea of the principle of free speech being ir. any real sense involved in tne affair will not stand examination, .t

is not free speech that these peopie are after now, any more than it was free lodgings they were -r'tcr when -_ey raised a row in tho churches; their object in both cases was not to redress a grievance but to create orie."

The glamour of the unreached Polo has faded, but a great deal of exploration work is being done, or is going to bo done, in Polar regions, With tlie plans of tho projected expeditions to the Antarctic our readers are familiar, but with th© exception of the Stefansson expedition, they have not heard much of the several parties wintering in the Arctic. Ono of these, the American expedition Mint out to explore Crocker Land, was referred to in our cable news a few days ago. Crocker Land i s a largo shadowy mass sighted by Peary in 1908 from tho north-west coast of Ellesmere Land. One of his companions, George Borup, intended to explore this land, but was drowned iv 1912, when the expedition was ready to start. His father continued to support the enterprise financially as a memorial to "his son, and tho expedition started last year under the command of Professor Macmillan, another of Peary's men. The base is at Etah, an Eskimo village, in NorthWest Greenland, and parties are to sledge thence over the sea ice to Ellesmere Land, across that tract, and then over tho sea ice again to Crocker Land. West of Ellesmere Land the map is practically a blank, and the expedition has an opportunity of covering itself with distinction. "

Besides this and tho Stefansson expedition, Rasmusson, the Danish ethnologist, is at work in North-West Greenland, and thero aro no fewer than three Russian expeditions in the wastes north of Siberia. The fate of theso is causing some anxiety, and the search for two of them has been entrusted to Captain Svcrdrup, the commander of the Fram on Nansen's famous voyago. "Though the Polo has been gained," says a writer in tho "Morning Post," "there are still large areas which the foot of man has never penetrated, offering abundant scope for the enterprise both of the adventurous explorer and of the scientific student for many a long day to come." Ho regards "the number of Polar expeditions as a healthy sign, showing that "exploration is being pursued for the sake of discovers' and adventure, and not merely as a sensational race for records."