E

VER since men grew wings, predictions of a war in the air have been made with free imagination and generous detail. The atmosphere above the roof tops has received much consideration as a possible battlefield, but it may be a surprising bit of news to many to know that already the air is the scene of a conflict-the war of the wireless. No swooping aeroplanes or dirigibles raining bolts and bombs figure as the weapons of offense. This is a far subtler warfare, waged with atmospheric waves. And just as Providence throws its favor on the side with the heaviest artillery, so the victory in the present contest will lie with the wireless station having the most powerful generators-unless Uncle Sam interferes.

All along the Atlantic Coast the preliminary skirmishes were fought, but now the trouble has come to a head in New York. At the very tip of Manhattan Island a great news organization has set up its radiotelegraph establishment.

A few blocks to the northward rises the white pile of the tallest building in the world and, halfway to its summit, there stretches out a glimmering web of aerials. These are the citadels of the opposing forces, the bastions from which volleys of sparks flash nightly while the city sleeps below. And because echoes of the conflict clog the lines of air talk, confusing the messages sent from the New York Navy Yard to warships far at sea, even interfering with the powerful wireless station at Fort Myer, near Washington, the Government is growing restless.

The trouble started with the first move of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company to gain control of all outgoing commercial messages. The company wished to make sure that their aerograms were given preference over all the other chatter that comes through the air. So they began with the ships. American operators on the liners, transatlantic and coast wise alike, were replaced by young Englishmen who were

willing to work for lower pay, even at such a cut rate as one pound sterling ($4.86) a month. For example, Jack Phillips, the operator on the Titanic, received only four pounds a month. These chaps, owing their jobs to the Marconi people, were quite ready to follow their instructions, which were to deliver only Marconi Company news messages to the ship's captain unless he gave specific orders to them to receive all matter of this class which they might overhear or which was addressed to that particular ship.

This was a direct throttling of the news service of the New York Herald, which has made a custom of sending out at a quarter after four o'clock each morning a résumé of the day's news and, what is more important to incoming ships, a report of the weather at Sandy Hook. If there is a heavy fog there, the skipper wants to know it so that he may slow down and and avoid anchoring outside. Should thick weather threaten, he must

sages. The paper had scored one point in the skirmishing.

With the opening of the Woolworth Building late in April, 1913, a new attack on the newspaper's service developed. When the Herald operator finished sending his press bulletin early one morning and threw open his receiver, every ship within talking distance seemed to fill the air at once with complaints that they had heard only the beginning of his messages because another station was sending on the same length wave. It wasn't hard to locate where the rival sending station was, but how to stop the "jamming" was a different proposition. proposition. The newspaper station is equipped with a five-kilowatt generator which, if called into full force, would drown out all other stations in the vicinity of New York, but except in cases of great need, the Government forbids the use of all this power. And what the Government says, goes-sometimes-although the laws which are supposed to regulate wireless work are violated pretty openly in many ways.

The situation about New York, and Boston, too, has been improved to some extent since the government inspectors went after the amateurs who for a long time almost disorganized the system by breaking in with tests of their own. Now Uncle Sam limits these experimenters to a wave of two hundred meters. This does not interfere with the commercial wave of six hundred or the Government's wave with its stretch of one thousand meters from crest to crest.

What steps will be taken to clear the air lines of this present congestion of talk is not as yet quite clear. The situation is much the same as if a boy who is throwing stones into a puddle with

some definite object in view for the ripples to attain, should be interrupted by the ripples created by another boy. Such a choppy meeting of waves is duplicated when the news messages, sent with direct purpose and for the benefit of sea travelers, are jammed by words and messages flung heedlessly into the air. The resultant muddle is disturbing to government business and the needs of commerce.

NEW GLASS CUTTER

them away. When the region had been

market is self-oiling and has a turret head with six wheels. The wheels are hand honed and mounted upon hard

THIS GLASS CUTTER IS SELF-OILING

tempered pinions in order that they may run uniformly.

The frame is so designed that it protects the wheels and prevents them from coming into contact with moisture. The handle is scientifically modeled and the tool is beautifully finished with a coppered and nickeled head of solid steel.

AN ARMY FOR A GARDEN

THERE is at Pasadena, California, a

sunk garden in what was once an unsightly gulch debouching from the picturesque Arroyo Seco Cañon.

The sides of the cliffs were terraced so that the torrential rains would not wash

of men, the surface was covered with loam and leaf mold and worked over and over until it formed an "epidermis". Grass was then planted and as if by magic this rough spot became a thing of beauty.

It is no unusual sight here to see forty or fifty men at a time working on a particularly steep hillside. In order to prevent the laborers from digging into the shallow earth with their heels, cleated boards are laid on the ground, and the men rest on these supports as they weed up and down the terraced lawns.

WIND MOVES SOIL

WIND and water are the agencies which tend most to change the composition of the soil, says the Bureau of Soils, and points out the instance, occurring in 1901, when great quantities of dust from the Sahara were carried over a distance of twenty-five hundred miles and deposited in Europe. The fact that similar soils are found over underlying rocks of different character is to be attributed to the action of the wind.

CHURCH IN A DAY

THE HE people of Spartanburg, South Carolina, wanted a church. Wanting it in a hurry, they built it in one day! Practically every man in the town skilled in the building trades enthusiastically offered his services, and those who were not builders came with their lunch baskets and messages of encouragement and camped on the scene until the day's work was done. The best bands in the country enlivened the day's work, and, as the work progressed, moving-picture cameras corded the operations. Friendly shouts from the crowd spurred the workmen to their best efforts.

re

rators, and every other class of artisans necessary for the building of a church. The foundation of the church had been laid and the building materials were all on the ground, but not a stroke of construction work had been done.

Exactly upon the minute of a quarter. after six o'clock on the morning of the day decided upon, the work began, and at eight o'clock that evening the church was completed in every detail, and eight hundred people held services in it. That ple offer as a challenge to the rest of is a record which the Spartanburg peo

Christentime in

perma

built

All told, there were exactly one hundred and fifty workmen on the job.

Tem

tures

often

tricians,

deco

dom. It is the first history that a nent church was in one day. porary struchave, of course, been thrown to

"THIS PLACE HAS CHANGED HANDS"

It now has a saloon on the first floor and a dance hall on the second.

ONE GOES HERE FOR GRAIN INSTEAD OF FOR RE

LIGIOUS INSPIRATION

The roadbed, as may be observed, is light and of very cheap construction. Sleepers are roughly supported on crude braces, which, in turn, are crossed by ties. The rails are of light iron. Each car consists of a platform supported by four cast-iron wheels. A rude bench is fastened upon this.

THIS BUILDING WAS ONCE A SACRED

SHRINE

It is now a coffee warehouse,

EDIFICE