TALKING TO SHIPS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXII, Issue 8942, 7 October 1907, Page 4

TALKING TO SHIPS.

Perhaps before the much-needed fog signal is placed on Godley Head, says the Press, the types of signals now in use will be superseded by a fearsome invention of a Frensh specialist, which the French Government are aborjt to tost on a lighthouse. This is nothing less than a huge imitation of the human mouth and throat, with an air-pump for lungs. Teeth, lips, jawbones, and all are imitated exactly. The inventor’s models, about the size of a human mouth, can be made to utter sounds ranging from a whisper to a terrific yell beside which the cry of the gentleman in “ The Face at the Window” would sound conventional. The mouth which is to be tried at the lighthouse is to be six feet across. A mouth can repeat only one syllable for each blast of air that is blown into it, so if a lighthouse *is to literally speak to ships, it will have to have more than one mouth. Such a thing is apparently contemplated. Eddystone Lighthouse is imagined by a English scientific paper as equipped with a set of mouths revolved by the mechanism which 1 turns the light. Mouth number one, as it turned seaward, would shout the syllable “Ed.” Mouths number two and three would follow quickly with “dy” and “stone.” Then there would be a short interval, and month number tour would finish the message by shouting “Light.” Nothing is said of the effect of this booming on the lighthouse-keepers. The fog signal is only one application of the invention. The possibilities of it as an advertisement have been seen by French promoters, but the Government for very goad reasons have discouraged the announcement from the house tops of the bargains to be had at So-and-so s summer sale, or the advantages to bo derived from the nse of somebody’s soap. A town cursed by such' things would be simply appalling. The invention is also to be applied to the motor car. A Frenchman is having fitted to a big touring car one of which will yell “Look,” and the other “out,” with a fraction of a second between, the words. At anyrate, this warning should bean improvement on the “toot” of the hors.