ROUND THE GLOBE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 105, 11 January 1912, Page 6

ROUND THE GLOBE.

THE WHISPERS OF WIRELESS. THE WORLD'S INVISIBLE GIRDLE. - While the little, building is going up , on top of the Tinakori Hills for New , Zealand's first effective "wireless" telegraph station, it is hard for New Zealanders to realise that the rest of the world is already in the grip of wireless to an extent that it is possible to speak of a wireless girdle .round the globe. To-day one could hardly circumnavigate the earth without being in touch with one or other wireless station somewhere. This, of course, refers to the regular steamer routes, whereby, with the necessary crossing of America, one could get round the world in the quickest time. The position is well put by Mr. P. A. Talbot, in the World's Work, where he traces the steamer on its voyage out of London. The splendid isolation of the vessel'in mid-ocean is a thing of the past. SPLENDID ISOLATION GONE. Say a liner is setting out from London and the passenger is bound for the East via the Suez Canal and Home again by way of Canada. The aerial stretching from mast to mast of the liner and communicating with the small ea,bin on the uppermost deck of the liner is a conspicuous feature. Ere the vessel has slipped its leash iri the Thames the ghostly communication is commenced and is maintained without cessation with various stations as the liner glide* down Channel. Passing through the portal to the Atlantic, with the stem turned towards Cornwall and the bow towards Ushant,, the impulses travel to and fro between the steamer and the "Farewell" station at Poldhu, whence a grip is' maintained upon the American Continent from Europe. Ere the coast of Spain is within a hundred or so miles the vessel is talking directly ahead and direetly astern at the same time, forming a kind of half-way house 'between Poldhu and one or other of the stations scattered along the Spanish mainland. The flow of messages between the land in front and the country behind is swelled by those proceeding from passing vessels,' and indeed the electric impulses signify-j ing words seem to be jostled to and fro through the air from vessel to vessel! like a ball upon a tennis court. , WIRELESS IN THE SUEZ CANAL. | Past Gibralter and through the Medi- | terranean communication never ceases. J If the vessel' is not speaking in front, she is still talking to a station astern! or to stations at th« side. The spurts] and splashes in the Marconi room on] the deck above offer convincing testi-' j mony that conversation is being maintained across space. In the Seuz Canal' wireless telegraphy has been found exceedingly valuable for communication be- ' tween ships as to where one shall "tie up" for the other to pass. If every . vessel were compelled to instal "wireless," the traffic of the canal could be handled much more easily than it is at present.

CHANGING TIDINGS. In the Red Sea, as the steamer churns her way south, the character of the news flashed to her wireless operator changes While the Somaliland station is rapping m messages concerning the life and movement of Abyssinia and the Court of the Negua, and Suez is emptying details concerning the Genii and Turkey other messages force their way onward from England announcing the winner of the Derby, the victor in the University b»at race, or the result of the American Presidential election. And as Aden is passed the news is of the Far East of India and its unrest, with forward tidings of the trouble in Chita.

INTO THE LONELY PACIFIC. Along the coast of India the steamer picks -up station after station, the last call being from Ceylon, before picking up the Calcutta operators. And so on as the steamer proceeds on her voyage there is always some station within reach until the vessel arrives at Yokohama. Hero commences the long crossing of the loneliest wastes of water in the world—the mighty Pacific. Here communication may fail, the invisible girdle may break down. The only converse can be with approaching or passing vessels and possibly the "fiery torch" of the world's news may be handed on in wireless; but there are chances against it. While pounding across these silent leagues of ocean the messages are few and far between, but, nevertheless scarcely an hour flits 4>y but what some electric impulses spurting through space are arrested in their progress by the steamer's antennae to give vent to dots and dashes of the Morse code. Still there are stations on the American Continent, to. welcome the steamer from the Far East.

THE HOME OP WIRELESS. In the Atlantic it is different. Messages pour in from all points of the compass. New 3 comes in such abundance as to be worth the printing on board ship in the daily Gazette. Not only do stations communicate with ships at sea, •but with stations 3000 miles away on the other side of the herring pond. Ships communicate with ships, and the wireless whisper becomes at shrill hubbub. So it continues across the Atlantic until the vessel sounds Clifden station on the Galway coast, and thus establishes direct communication with every part of Great Britain. Soon Malin Head station swings into the circuit, and then Liverpool is spoken, and thus with wireless conversation still proceeding the traveller completes the circuit of the world.—'Wellington Evening Post.