POSSIBILITIES OF VESSELS COMMUNICATING WITH EACH OTHER AT SEA.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2152, 24 April 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

POSSIBILITIES OF VESSELS COMMUNICATING WITH EACH OTHER AT SEA.

Tiik number of directions in which experiments are being made with electricity is almost numberless. Prof. Bell, in a recent interview, stated that similar con* elusions had been reached by himself and Prof. Trowbridge aa to a means of ve«sels communicating with each other at sea, as follows :— " Most of the passenger steamers have dynamo engines, and are electrically lighted. Suppose, for instance, one of them should trail a wire a mile long, or any length, which is connected with the dynamo-engine and electrically charged. The wire would practically have aground connection by trailing in the water, at least, the remit would be the same. Suppose you attach a telephone to the end on board of a ship. Then your dynamo or telephone end would be positive, and the other end of the wire trailing behind would be negative. All of the water about the ship will be positive within a circle whose radius is one-half of the length of the wire. All of the water about the ti ailing end of the wire will be negative within a circle whose radius is the other half of the wire. If your wire is one mile long, there is then a large area of water about the ship which is affected either positively or negatively by the dynamo engiue and the electrically charged wire. It will be impossible for any ship or object to approach within the water so charged in relation to your abip without the telephone telling the whole story to the listening ear. Now, if a ship coming in this area also has * similar apparatus, the two vessela can communicate with each other by their telephones. If they are enveloped in a fog, they can keep out of each other'a way. The ship having the telephone can detect other ships in its track, and keep out of the way in a fog or storm. The matter is so simple that I hope oar ocean steamships will experiment with it. The principal is not new ; it it old, with a new use waiting for commerce to utilise it. I have experimented on the Potomac, and marvelled at the simplicity of the apparatus and the stupendous impoitance of the results.— Scientific, American,