THE OMAHA ILLUSTRATED BEE.
5
Wireless Telegraphy in the United States Army Signal Corps
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TArPINO A TREE FOR WIRELESS TELEORATTIT.
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kN 1SS9 General Orecly, th chlf
signal officer of the army, follow
ing his well known custom of In
vestigating and developing all new
appliances pertaining to military
signalling, made It possible for the signal
corps of the army to devise and maintain
the first system of wireless telegraphy pub
llc'y operated In America. Since that date
the signal corps has kept pace with the Im
provements In wireless systems with a view
of being prepared at any moment to pro
vide the army with the best and most mod
ern wireless appliances for the field, where
the final test of all military machines must
be made. In connection with the experi
mental work done In wireless telegraphy by
the signal corps mention must be made of
an Incident which occurred last year during
the army maneuvers in California, where a
signal party following advancing troops
with a buzzer line came upon ground so
dry that It was found impracticable to se
cure a return earth circuit, or a "ground,"
as It is familiarly called. In the emergency
an officer seeing a living tree nearby drove
a nail In the trunk of the same, attaohed
his ground wire to the nail and found, to
Ms surprise, that the minute streams of sap
which extend upward from the roots of the
tree furnished an excellent ground conDeo
tlon for the buzzer line.
Valne of Chance rHeovery.
Major General Arthur MacArthur, U. S. A.,
says in h)s official report of the maneuvers
of 19od under his command: "The most
notable event connected with the field ex
ercises herein referred to resulted from the
exceedingly resourceful manner in which
First Lieutenant W. ' M. Goodale, Signal
corps, discharged his duties at American
lake. Under the pressure of emergencies
which arose in pursuance of his field work,
he attempted to obtain a 'ground' for the
return circuit of an electrical wire by means
of nails driven into trees. The experiments
were surprisingly successful, and Inasmuch
as the empirical discovery thus made has
already become the subject of systematic
Investigations, which may contribute ma
terially and substantially to the scientific)
knowledge of the world, It Is desired to
make a permanent record of the initial
steps in the premises."
This Incident referred to was made the
subject of much investigation and many
experiments by Major George O. Squler of
the signal corps, who has, as a result, an
nounced an original conclusion to the effect
that living vegetable organisms may be
used as a part of a circuit for the electrical
oscillations used In wireless transmission, a
discovery which has made, possible the use
of ordinary living trees for receiving anten
nae at wireless stations. For the limited
areas covered by armies la the field all
military men will at once appnrlnte the
Importance of this discovery to future field '
signalling.
It was the good fortune of the writer to
be permitted to do experimental work
quite recently on the Pacific coast In the
use of vegtable antennae for wireless field
signalling. The scene of the experiments
was the vicinity of the post of Benlcla
barracks, California, about twenty-five
miles north of San Francisco, In which
region other wireless stations of the I'nlted
States navy were already In operation at .
Yerba Puena Island, near 8an Francisco;
at Mare Island navy yard, In the Farra
lone Islands, and on several war vessels la
Ban Francisco hnrbor. . '
Trees Vastly Serviceable.
' In order to read any wireless message '
passing between any of the stations named.)
It was found only necessary to send a line
man up the tallest living tree available,
drive a nail in the same and connect the
nail by suitable insulated cord to the re
ceiving apparatus below, which, of course,
was suitably grounded the messages thus
intercepted being heard by tho use of an
ordinary head telephone, plainly and dis
tinctly, regardless of tho noise of the wind '
and of enlisted men moving about and
talking In the vicinity of the station.
Messages were received when the receive
lng antennae consisted only of a barrel
hoop crossed with several bare copper wire. .
connected in parallel with the receiving ap
paratus below, the hoop being simply
thrown fr6m the ground to the ipper
branches of a tree at a height of about ,
thirty feet and with an electrolytic cell de
tector messages were read from a station
eight miles distant when the antenna ,
consisted of only about thirty fefet of bars
Iron wire stretched horizontally between
two barracks at a height of about ten
feet. When using a fifty-foot aerial, con
sisting of a seven-strand Insulated cord
suspended from the post flagstaff, no diffi
culty was experienced In reading massages
sent from the naval station in the Farra- :
lone islands. These signals could be faintly
read when the detector was simply con
nected to a nail driven in a tree branch
at the height of about thirty feet.
In the majority of the work the receiving
Instruments consisted of a DeForrest
electrolytic cell detector, a synchronizer and
some insulated cord wire, all of which can
easily be carried in two soldiers' haver- '
sacks.
Best Trees for the Purpose,
Many experiments with the use of the
electrolytic cell detector impressed the
writer that the most suitable trees for
antennae were the tallest trees with the
most foliage and that the intensity of the
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IJSTENINO TO AN INTERCEPED MESSAGE.
sound In the receiver, varied directly with
the number of contacts made In the trunk
of the tree. The best ground connection
was obtained when an iron, peg was driven
into the earth at least fifty feet from the'
base of the tree used in the direction of
the sending station and connected with the
detector by an Insulated wire. Raising the
insulated wire off the earth between the
peg and the detector Invariably improved
conditions. Many experiments were made
In moving the peg radially to and from the
tree station, with the result that generally
the approach toward the tree diminished
the sound In the receiver. The many vary
ing results obtained, create the Impression
that the results are due to the underground
conformation of the tree root system,
which Is naturally the continuation of the
antennae. After many attempts, no di
minution In the intensity of the sound in
the receiver-could be detected, due to the
screening effect of trees or groves of trees
surrounding a particular tree In use as an
antennae. A message was received using
a tree antennae when a high brick wall
stood immediately In front of the tree and
between it and the sending station.
Another Valuable Pointer.
After many experiments the writer be
came convinced that the greatest activity
took place within the electrolytic cell de
tector when the earth peg was planted In
ft right line between the sending and the
receiving stations and that any shifting
of said peg In azimuth from the position
named diminished the sound In the tele
phone receiver until the minimum was ob
tained when the earth peg has been shifted
189 degrees and was In the rear of the
receiving station in tho prolongation of the
right line Joining the sending and receiving
points. The value of thus being able to
detect the direction from which oscllllatlona
are coming and thus being able to detect
the direction of the enemy's station will
be of great value In the field.
The theory of the wireless system Is not
difficult or mystifying and the appliances
used are not complicated for the distances
Involved In the case of an army operating
In the field and maintaining communication
between Its various units and base.
Viewing the Immense advances made In
wireless telegraphy In the last year, tho
possibilities of the future of field signalling
are almost too stupendous to contemplate.
The signal corps field slgnalllst of the fu
ture, with the possibilities of the wireless)
telegraph and the future storage battery,
may carry in his haversaok all the ap
paratua necessary to converse readily with
any distant station.
CHARLES MeK. SALTZMAN, ,
Captain Signal Corps, U. S. A.
Cuba's New Port and the Vast Fruit Industry it Has Developed
(Copyright, 1906, by Prank O. Carpenter.)
NTILLA. Cuba, Aug. 17. (Special
xV I Correspondence of The Bee.) I
1 date this letter at the future
V7"k?J feat city of eastern Cuba, the
a"r 1 new port of Antllla, the terminus
of Sir William Van Home's Cuba railroad,
on Nlpe bay. The place now consists of
some thatched huts, a railroad depot and a
large warehouse which serves as quarters
for the civil engineers and other Americans
who are laying out the town. The railroad
has been opened only a short time and the
wharves, although such that great
steamers can land at them, are far from
completion.
The plans are upon a grand scale, and
when carried out, Antllla will be one of
the beautiful cities of the world. As it is
now, It Is surrounded by wilderness. There
are thousands of acres of forests in every
direction, with here and there a great fruit
or sugar plantation, cut out of the woods.
Nevertheless, this country will one day
be the winter vegetable garden for New
York, and it has already begun to supply
our markets with oranges, bananas, pine
apples and other tropical fruits. It Is only
two and a half days by fast steamers
from New York City, and next winter a
line of large vessels will be going back
and forth, carrying freight and passengers.
The port Is already connected with Havana
by railway, and the Cuba road will make
such freight rates that a large part of the
products of eastern and central Cuba will
be shipped to the United States via Antllla,
The loading arrangements will be such that
freight can be cheaply transferred from the
cars to the vessels, and lower freight rates
will be given than are possiblo via Havana.
Indeed, it is expected that a large part of
the travel from the United States to Cuba
will be carried this way, and that this
whole region will be rapidly developed.
tome Big Enterprises.
At present the most of the lands here are
in the hands of large capitalists and the
native Cuban. It Is Impossible to buy small
tracts, and everything so far Is on a grand
scale. I came to Antllla from Santiago,
leaving the main line of the Cuba road at
Alto Cedro, which Is tweny-flve or thirty
miles from Antllla. Almost the whole coun
try from there to the Immediate vlclnty of
the bay Is owned by three or four families.
That nearest the bay belongs to H. Demols
A Co., who own about 40,000 acres
and have already 4,000 acres under cultiva
tion, and to the Nlpe Bay company, an as
sociation of Boston capitalists, which has
bought 125,000 acres, much of which It pro
poses to clear and plant In cane. Within a
short distance of these tracts is one of
0,000 acres, for which the Knickerbocker
Trust company of New York is negotiating.
The owners are rich Cubans, and they ask
$.00,000 for the property. Near it is another
estate of SO.000 acres, which Includes the site
of Alto Cedro. This Is valued at 110 an acre
cr at 500,000, and can only be bought In
the lump.
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HOME OB" GEORGE DUMOIS AT SAETIA.
A PLANTATION VTLLAGE.
raited Fruit tontpanr F.state.
Within a short distance of Nlpe bay Is
Banes .bay, the lands about which are
owned by the United Fruit company whose
steamers run regularly between Nlpe bay
and Banes bay-and New York. This com
pany has 72,000 acres of land, and about
19,000 acres under cultivation. It has almost
8.0U0 acres In sugar cane, and its sugar mill
alone cost $S00,000. It Is now grinding out
about 40,000,000 pounds of sugar a year. Its
annual banana shipments to New York are
about 1,600,000 bunches. The Dumols com
pany has an enormous acreage under fruit,
and It has also several thonsand acres In
cane.
The Nlpe Bay company is composed of
Yankees, who are largely interested in the
United Fruit company. It has a capital of
about W.P00.000. and If its plans are carried
out It will have the largest plantations In
Cuba. It is now preparing to build the
largest sugar mill in the world, one which
win. grind .000 bags per day. and which
will eat up as much sugar cane as can be
produced on 1G.0OO acres.'
All this land, as I have said, la now In
large tracts, and Its owners consider Its
present value to be something like $10 per
acre. It may be years before It is offered
to the public, but the probability is that
much of It will eventually be subdivided
and that this whole region will be covered
with fruit farms of greater or less size and
of enormous value.
hut let us tall you something about Nips
bay. It has the finest harbor in Cuba, and
is so large that you could put Santiago bay,
Havana bay and nearly every other good
bay of this island Inside it and have room to
spare. -It Is ten or twelve miles long, eight
or ten miles wide, and Is entered by a nar
row channel with a deep waterway. The
channel Is deep throughout to Corojal bay,
where Sir William Van Home has laid out
Antllla. The bay' Is surrounded by hills
and low mountains and its scenery com
pares with that of the Bay of Naples or
the waters about the Isles of Greece. It
has a fine climate and many think It will
be one of the winter resorts of the United
States. Sir William Van Home has. bought
150 acres on the Raymon peninsula, not
far from the entrance. He is clearing this'
and expects to build a winter home there.
1 unacriiaiiu mm vjuvanu luiuivinnuu,
whose daughter Is to marry Sir William
Van Home's son, wlll build a residence
nearby, and that other rich Americans are
negotiating for similar properties. Just
across the way the Dumols family has al
ready constructed buildings on the Island
of Saetla, and the Nlpe Bay company
millionaires are likely to have homes on
their property. The Spanish-American Iron
company has bought 5,000 acres on the
pine hills in the mountains on the other
side of the bay, and are prospecting it for
metals, and there are others who are ne
gotiating with the Cubans for the lands
remaining.
From Alto Cedro to' Nlpe Day.
t The railroad ride from Alto Cedro to
Antllla gives a fair Idea of the whole of
this region, except where the plantations
have beeu cut out of the woods and trans
formed by a miracle, as It were, from a
tropical Jungle to the richest fruit fields
on earth.- All the way along the road
there Is a thick forest composed of white
trunked trees, knotty and gnarly, which
rise 100 or more feet In the air, and under
them a thicket of young trees, which grow
up for thirty feet without a branch. Theoe
trees are bound together with vines, long
lianas hang down from their limbs, and
here and there take root In the ground.
The tops of the trees are covered with
air plants, and orchids by the thousands
roost In their branches. There are dead
trees which have fallen this way and that,
broken by the wind, and dead vines, the
whole so matted and woven together that
It would be Impossible to go through this
jungle without an axe or a machete. This
wilderness continues all the way from
Alto Cedra to Nlpe bay, and It still sur
rounds the greater part of the bay. There
are, however, about 4.000 acres which have
been cut down, burned over, and turned
Into a plantation of sugar cane, oranges,
bananas, pineapples, coffee and cacao. This
tract belongs to II. Dumols at Co.,
and it Is the result of only four years'
work. It is the most wonderful agricul
tural exhibit I have ever seen In any part
of the world.
Agrlraltnral Garden ot Eden,
This land, as I have said, was a Jungle
four years ago. Today It la an agricul
tural Garden of Eden. It contains 1,000,000
baaaa tie, i, 000, 000 pineapples, ,)
orange trees, 80,000 cacao trees and 160,000
coffee trees, all thriftily growing. The
cultivated lands cover 4,000 or 6,000 aores.
There are not as many weeds upon this
tract as In the best kept kitchen garden
of the United States. I rode on horseback
thirty-five miles over the plantation, taking
two days to it, riding sixteen or more miles
at a trip, and I did not see a dozen weeds
nor a dozen blades of grass. The crops
are kept as clean as a floor, and the growth
of everything Is beyond belief.
This plantation Is just at Its beginning.
The property Is only four years old. The
company owns 40,000 acres, and of this only
one-tenth has been planted. It is expected
that the planting will continue, so Mr.
Dumois tells me, until they have 6,000,000
pineapples, 2,000,000 banana trees and 600,
000 orange trees. These, when In full bear
ing, should net about 300,000 cases of pines,
1,500,000 bunches of bananas and 600,000
boxes of oranges every year. The com
pany nas a capital stock of 11,000,000, and
when Its plantations have reached the above
condition they should bring In about $1,000,000
a year. This condition will probably come
within two or three years. The company
Is a close corporation, consisting of Mr. H.
Dumois and his son, his brother and a few
friends and relatives. There is, I believe,
no stock for sale.
Frtrlt KUuTof Nlpe.
Before I describe my visit to this estate,
let me tell you something of its chief
owner. This Is Mr. Htppolyte Dumols, the
fruit king of Nlpe bay. He has been rais
ing fruit in Cuba all his life, and he knows
more today bout .the country and how to
get the most out of it than any. other man
In It. His father was a coffee planter near
Commission of the First Governor of Iowa
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u64&JrpX (3J&yt0tu&ufa- $(.tta' Glutei tf'
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FAC SIMILE OF THE COMMISSION OF GENERAL ROBERT LUCAS, FIRST GOVERNOR OF THE TERRITORY OF IOWA.
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i.iu uilglllOJ UUIU1UC1U 10 111 Wl
I I powusslon of the State Historical
Robert Lucas was appointed first
governor of Iowa Territory by
President Van Buren. The communion
bears the date of July T. 1838. Tills precious
document has suffered very much from the
lapse X time sad possibly t(0ia lack
care during earlier years of its existence.
Wherever blanks were filled with pen writ
ing the Ink has become much faded. In
some Instances even the printed lines are
so worn that It Is quite, dlflcult to trace
them. While the work Is in some respects
faulty. It Is certainly as good as can be
produced without a better copy, which at
this Urns 1 wholly out 4 tbs question. It
shows as nearly as practicable what the
commission was at the date of its Issuance.
The Iowa State Historical sociiey is mak
ing every possible effort to recover the
commissions of Governors Chambers and
Clarke, but up te this time without success.
It Is extremely doubtful whether either of
them Is In existence, and a matter of re
gret tuat they, have not beta preserved.
Santiago, and Mr. Dumols began Ufa in the
fruit business. His first plantations were
at Baracoa, on the northern coast ot Cuba
not far from Cape Malsl, and a little later
he bought 18,000 acres of land near Banes
bay. He cleared 10,000 acres there and set It
out in bananas and was doing an enormous
business shipping his crops to the United
States when the Spanish war broke out.
He then had a fleet of fruit steamers,
there were twenty miles of railroad on his
plantation and everything was on a propor
tionate scale. His property was destroyed
during the war, but at its cless he rejuve
nated It and merged with the United Fruit
company. He had a large ameut of stook
of this company and acted as manager ot
the Banes plantation, building the central
Boston sugar mill, which la still running.
When everything was In full operation
he deolded to retire from the business life
and went to Havana. He soon became
discontented, however, and then returned
here and bought the enormous tracts ot
land which are now owned by himself and
family and the Nlpe Bay company. The
property was first bought In connection
with the Nlpe Bay company; but he has
taken his share, and now owns In connec
tion with his relatives more than 40,000
acres of the richest land In Cuba. A part
of this estate Is on the Island of Saetla
and the peninsula of Raymon, and an
other part on the mainland bordering the
bay and the Tacajs river. He has about
twelve miles ot railway on the estate and
has dug a canal through the neck of the
Saetla Isthmus, connecting Nlpe bay with
Levlsa bay, making Saetla an Island.
Pineapples Millions.
I came with Mr. Dumols from Santiago
to Antllla, and I have spent several days
with him on his estate during my stay.
Leaving Antllla, we rode across the bay
In the plantation launch to Saetla, where
Mr. Dumols has 1,000,000 pineapples,
1.000,000 banana trees and several hundred
thousand orange trees now growing.
Five hundred men are there employed, and
the homes of Mr. Dumols and his sons and
of the various officials make quite a
colony. Their houses line the shore near
the wharves, with a beautiful park , be
tween them and the beach. There is an
office, a store, a blacksmith shop, a ma
chine shop and a number of comfortable
homes, the largest of which Is that of
George C. Dumois, the son ot Mr. H. Du
mois. Sixteen Miles of Bananas.
Directly bark of the buildings the banana
plantations begin. They extend along the
shore for miles, rising up the hills so that
the whole side of the island Is banked with
a great mass of green leaves. The planta
tion has excellent roads, and during my
stay I took a horseback ride through these
banana fields of fully sixteen miles. The
banana trees were far above my head as I
rode through them on a little white pony,
and, Indeed, I could hardly reach thefrutt
by standing upright on my saddle. The
trees were not over six feet apart and
riding through them Is Ilk going through
a forest of green trunks supporting great
rlbbon-llks leaves whloo sosst eve(Jia4
and shade the ground. New and then we
passed a tree In blossom. Eaoh tree had
but one; but this was from six to ten Inches
long and at Its base was as big around as
my arm. It looked like a great bud rather
than a blossom, and It formed the end ot
a bunch of bananas whloh extended out
from the root of the leaves at ft distance
of from ten to fifteen feet from the ground.
As I looked I noticed that the stem of the
bunch hung down and that the bananas
grow upward Instead of downward, as many,
suppose. I counted many bunches whloh
had fifty bananas upon them and was told
that ft single bunch may have as many as
100.
How tho Fruit Is Harvested.
In cutting bananas trees are chopped al
most In half. As they fall the bunch Is
caught and cut off, after which the tree
Is chopped off to the ground, to allow the
sprouts at the foot to have the full strength,
of the roots. Bananas here will -sprout up
six, seven, eight or more years from the
same roots; and sugarcane will, I am told,
yield crops for twenty-five years without
replanting.
All bananas' Intended for export are out
green. There Is not ft bit of yellow to be
seen In any of the fruit when It Is shipped,
and It takes ft week or more befere suoh
bananas are ready for eating. There are
packing sheds along the coast throughout
the plantation, where the bananas are put
into lighters and carried to the central sta
tion to the steamers. Four days after that
they are in New York, and within two
weeks are on the breakfast tables all over
the country.
Pineapples and Oranges.
In another part of the estate pineapples
grow between the bananas. They seem to
do as well there as In the open. Indeed, I
saw pines by the thousands as big as ft
man's head surrounded by red and green
cactus-like leaves. In another part oranges
grow among the bananas. Ths orange
trees are of a rich green. Many of them
are pure Cuban, but thousands are budded
from the best of the Florida and California
varieties.
Later I crossed the bay to ths Tacaja
plantation, which also belongs to this same
company. This contains 86,000 acres and It
has even more bananas and oranges than
are on ths Island of Saetla. I rode about
twenty miles up and down the hills through
the bananas there, and at times was so
lost. In going this way and that over ths
plantation roads, that, had not the manager
of the estate been with me, I might havs
ridden about for days and not found tnjf,
way out.
$
Four Thonsand Aores Kept Clean.
These millions of bananas and plneapphf
and the hundreds of thousands ot orange,
coffee and cacao trees Were ft wonder to me,
but the greatest wonder of all was ths fao
that they have all been planted within ths
short space of four years, and that four
years ago the land on which they stand
was a jungle of forest, mors wild than any)
part of the lower Mississippi valley. Within
that abort time these 4,000 acres of woods)
have been cut, cleared and mads Into ft
farm more clean than the finest ross gar
den In the United States. The woods wr
cut and burned over and the plants, with
out plowing or a bit of cultivation, were set
out In the ashes. Since then not ft plow;
has been used and ths only tillage has)
been to pull out the weeds and dig ths
grass. Today In all the cultivated portion
of the estate there Is not enough grass to
give one meal to a good-sized goat and
there are absolutely no weeds whatsoever
All Piece Work.
The plant&tten Is kept clean by oontrftoC,
each man being allotted as many acres as
he will cars for st from 60 to 75 Cents per
acre per month. One man can keep clean
about forty aores. This nets him from 82S
to $30 per month, and he has time to make
extra money by cutting cans or bananas
or doing odd Jobs about the plaos.
All of Mr. Dumols' work Is dons by eon
tract, and his men make from 130 to $40 ft
month. The man who does not keep his
tract clean Is fined and If he slights It much,
he is discharged. Inspectors go about reg
ularly to see that the work is properly
done. During the thirty or forty miles
ride which J took over the property I saw
no gangs at work weeding, although I did
now and then pts a boy pulling Weeds
out of the roads and putting them In littlo,
tags to be carried away.