LIST OF KILLED ON BOARD H. M. S. SHANNON.

"G. T. L. Watt, first lieutenant; G. Aldham, purser; John Dunn, captain's clerk; G. Gilbert, Wm. Bertles, Neil Gilchrist, Thomas Selby, James Long, John Young, James Wallace, Joseph Brown, able seamen; Thomas Barr, Michael Murphy, Thomas Molloy, Thomas Jones, John O. Connolly, ordinary seamen; Thos. Barry, first-class boy. Marines.-Samuel Millard, corporal; James Jaynes, Dominique Sadin, Wm. Young, privates. Supernumeraries.-Wm. Morrisay, John Moriarty, Thomas Gormon.

"P. B. V. BROKE, Captain. "ALEX. JACK, Surgeon."

By the late GEORGE H. PREBLE,

Rear-Admiral U. S. Navy.

THE USE OF TREES IN WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY IN FIELD OPERATIONS.

THE United States Army Signal Corps, during the recent military maneuvers at American Lake, Washington State, and Camp Atascadero, California, made a discovery which may prove valuable as a means of introducing wireless telegraphy into field operations.

Complicated appartus for this purpose is in use in the German army and has been adopted by the Russians, but this new discovery will greatly simplify the methods employed.

In transmitting electro-magnetic waves over land, the absorption of intervening hills, vegetation and conductors in general, through which the electric waves must pass in reaching the receiving apparatus, has always heretofore interfered with the use of wireless telegraphy over land areas, but by the present system this has been overcome, at least for short distances.

At the American Lake maneuvers, Lieutenant William M.. Goodale, U. S. Signal Corps, found that in laying rapid telephone lines in a wooded country, for the field exercises of the army, a much better ground could be obtained by making the ground connection through a nail driven into a tree or shrub, than by the ordinary method of burying a conducting plate, and much more readily. In very dry, sandy soil, such as was found at Camp Atascadero, it was very difficult to get a good ground by the ordinary method, but by utilizing trees for the purpose, a telegraph or telephone station could be established in a few moments with an excellent ground, even when the nail was placed 30 feet or more above the earth surface.

Major George O. Squier, U. S. Signal Corps, who was in charge of the signal work at Camp Atascadero, found also that good communication could be maintained from one tree top to another, with the trunks of both trees in the circuit. He also found that when the operator holds the ground wire in his hand, and completes the circuit to earth by merely touching a live twig or leaf, the transmission of speech is good.

The advantage of this, in a military sense, is apparent. A scout can thus use the tree elevation to obtain a good view, screened by the foliage from the enemy, and can still transmit, by his field telephone in his hands, the information he obtains to any distant station connected by field telephone wire.

These were the observations which led to the discovery of utilizing trees in wireless field telegraphy. The experiments on this subject were conducted at Fort Mason, San Francisco, California, utilizing the grove of eucalyptus trees in front of the quarters of Major General Arthur Mac Arthur, commanding the Pacific Division, in connection with the Signal Corps wireless stations at Fort Mason and on Alcatraz Island, in the bay, and the naval wireless station on Yerba Buena island, 34 miles away.

The advantages of using wireless telegraphy in field operations would be very great, since the maintenance of a wire line has always presented a serious obstacle, and particularly in a military terrain, where it is liable to constant interruption. On the other hand, the equipment and apparatus thus far used has the great objection of requiring some form of mast, captive balloon or kite to be transported, and these are not only difficult to manage and get into position when required, but also disclose the position to the enemy.

Major Squier's apparatus not only avoids all these difficulties and objections, but is exceedingly simple besides. A tree is used to support the sending aerial, the ground or earthing being effected by attaching a wire to one or more nails driven into its base. The tree stem was used to support the aerial, the only electrical connection therewith being at its base. A sending station can be installed in ten to fifteen minutes. For receiving, another tree was used, to which the receiver was attached at a convenient height. The receiver consists merely of a microphone, three small dry cells and a head telephone receiver.

Other investigations of a scientific character were made in the course of these experiments, especially interesting in the study of botany. We quote a few remarks of Squier, which are of general interest:

"It would seem that living vegetation may play a more important part in electrical phenomena than has been generally supposed. We have seen that living vegetable organisms absorb and conduct electro-magnetic oscillations over a wide range of the electro-magnetic spectrum, beginning with sunlight, whose electrical action in the plant cell is at present little understood, and

extending to waves of identical character, but of immensely greater lengths, such as Hertizian radiation, telephonic waves, and oscillations of the ordinary low frequencies used in commercial electric transmission lines. * * *

"According to present theory, all electrical conduction is really electrolytic in character, accompanied by dissociation of electrons and recombination, so that actual oscillatory currents maintained throughout the living organisms of vegetation may effect changes in a growth whose very existence is now known to vitally depend upon the electro-magnetic waves of sunlight.

* * *

"During daylight the air is filled with electrous, carying positive and negative charges of electricity, which are more or less recombined during the night."

The great practical value of the experiments, however, lies in their application for war purposes, and General Mac Arthur considered the results of sufficient importance to embody the entire account in his report to the War Department on the military maneuvers in the Pacific Division, 1904. Incidentally, these discoveries indicate another advantage of holding the annual maneuvers, since the officers participating therein work under the stimulating effects of conditions simulating war and directly under the eyes of their superiors, so that prompt recognition of good service is sure to be accorded.

The possibilities of wireless, telegraphy have by no means been exhausted, and the immense advantages to be derived from the above system of communication in the field cannot be estimated. Information of the enemy as well as of the conditions in his own troops at distant points of the line of a modern battle, is the great desideratum of the commanding general to-day, when battlefields have assumed such enormous proportions, and any means which will facilitate the transmission of information is hailed with delight by the staff of an army.

JOHN P. WISSER,

Major U. S. Army.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

The second article is a tribute to a great soldier, whom we should all like to know better:

"By the retirement of Sir Evelyn Wood from his command at Salisbury, a brilliant military career has come to a close. Commencing his service in the Royal Navy, in which he had his first experience of war in the Crimea, Sir Evelyn Wood abandoned the hope of attaining high rank, as he would have been bound to do as a sailor, and joined the 13th Light Dragoons, exchanging to the 17th Lancers in time to see much active work in Central India during the Mutiny. Here he gained the Victoria Cross by a signal act of gallantry. He shortly afterwards effected another exchange, and the infantry of the Line claimed him as its own, for it was as an infantry officer that his whole subsequent regimental life was to be passed. The Ashanti Expedition gave him his first real chance. He had passed the Staff College in 1864, and held various appointments on the Staff in Great Britain; and his reputation at that early period stood so high that it was not to be wondered at that Lord (then Sir Garnet) Wolseley gladly availed himself of the opportunity of taking with him to Kumasi one who had already earned the confidence of the generals under whom he had done duty. Returning from the Gold Coast, Colonel Wood soon found his way to South Africa, where he again had opportunities of displaying those splendid qualities of leadership which caused him even then to be regarded as a coming man of mark in his profession. His record in the Zulu War enhanced his reputation greatly, and the promotion which arrived to him on the close of operations made his position in the Service secure, so that when the trouble arose in Egypt in 1882 it was but natural that he should be singled out for a command. This he filled with such credit that to him was entrusted the duty of organizing the new Egyptian Army. It was a weighty responsibility, but it was one for which the intrepid and tried soldier was fully equal, as the result proved beyond doubt. The public are apt to forget how much the Egyptian Army of to-day-the Army which became afterwards so powerful an instrument in the hands of Lord Kitchener in his prosecution of the campaign against: