Telephones at Sea

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 19, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 32.

Telephones at Sea.

THE number of directions in which experiments are being made with electricity is almost numberless, says the Scientific American.

Professor Bell, in a recent interview, stated that similar conclusions had been reached by himself and Professor Trowbridge as to a means of vessels communicating with each other at sea as follows:—

"Most of the passenger steamships 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 a ground connection by trailing in the water, or at least the result 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 trailing 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 engine 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 ship, without the telephone telling the whole story to the listening ear. Now, if a ship coming in this area also has a similar apparatus, the two vessels can communicate with each other by their telephones. If they are enveloped in a fog, they can keep out of each other's 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 our ocean steamships will experiment with it. The principle is not new; it is old, with a new use waiting for commerce to utilize it. I have experimented on the Potomac, and marveled at the simplicity of the apparatus and the stupendous importance of these results."—Sel.