IMPORTANT DISCOVERY.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 933, 9 April 1881, Page 2 (Supplement)

IMPORTANT DISCOVERY.

A recent discovery .made by Professor Trowbridge, of Harvard University, Massachusetts,- will set the more sensitive holders of cable shares thinking, for he has demonstrated- the pos- 5 sibility—kmg ago suggested—of telegraphingthrough the earth without the aid of a wire, .Electric time signals are sent from Harvard to Boston every second by means’ of a telegraph wire and the usual “earth.” Professor Trowbridge ba? .found that by suitable arrangements the. ticks of the clopk at Harvard can be’ heard at a distance, of a mile dr wore frdm the Observatory simply by “tapping” the circuit/and he accordingly points out that it is theoretically possible to telegraph across the. Atlantic without a cable. Thus a powerful dynamolelectrie machine might be.placed at rsome point in Noya Scotia and connected, by a, carefully insulated wire of high conductivity with some place, say, in Florida. Then’by exploring the coast 'of Frrifice two poihts en ttto surface lines could be found,: and by means o£a*telephone pf low rpsjstapce, the j Morse-, signals passing between Nova v Scotia and Florida might be heard in France?, ’• Thtefe is one disadvantage in this l sdheiife it would be impossible' to insure the, secrecy •of telegrams, for anyone suitably located, and with proper appliances, would be able to receive the signals.