Progress in Electrical Communication

Abstract

IT is becoming almost commonplace to remark that the growth of modern civilisation has been dependent to a very considerable extent upon the progress made in the art of communication, and, in particular, upon the facilities provided by electrical communications in linking together portions of the earth geographically remote from one another. The British Empire, with its widely distributed interests, has special need of efficient long-distance communication, and it is perhaps, therefore, significant to recall how large a part Great Britain has played in the development of that special branch of science which has nowadays earned the title of “communications engineering”. On the occasion of the ninth annual Norman Lockyer lecture of the British Science Guild, delivered on Thursday, November 23, Prof. E. V. Appleton gave a discourse on “Empire Communication” in which he outlined the growth and development of both wire and wireless communication as employed to meet Imperial needs (British Science Guild, 6 John Street, Adelphi, London, W.C.2. Is.). At the beginning of the lecture, the audience was reminded that the first two great pioneer achievements in long-distance communication were concerned with the linkage of Great Britain with her oldest colony, Newfoundland. For, in August 1858, cable communication was first established between Valencia in Ireland and Trinity Bay, Newfoundland; while in December 1901, Marconi's signals from Poldhu, in Cornwall, were successfully received across the Atlantic by means of a kite-aerial at Signal Hill, also in Newfoundland. In this manner was demonstrated the potentialities of the two methods of electrical communication, one making use of an electric current guided along a copper conductor, while the other utilises the propagation of free electric waves. In spite of the intense controversy which has at times taken place on the relative advantages of communication by submarine cable and by wireless transmission, experience has shown generally that each system, in its own particular sphere, supplements rather than competes with the other.