The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice; Or, Solving a Wireless Mystery

completely revolutionize long distance radio communication.” “You mean the Langmuir tube,” said Joe. “I was reading of it the other day, and it seems to be a dandy.” “It’s a wonderful thing,” replied the doctor. “Likely enough it will take the place of the great transatlantic plants which require so much room and such enormous machinery. It’s practically noiseless. Direct current is sent into the wire through a complicated wire system and generates a high frequency current of tremendous power. I saw it working when it was connected with an apparatus carrying about fifteen thousand volts of electricity in a direct current. A small blue flame shot through the tube with scarcely a particle of noise. The broken impulse from the electrical generators behind the tube was sent through the tube to be flung off from the antenna into space in the dots and dashes of the international code. That little tube was not much bigger than a stick of dynamite, but was infinitely more powerful. I was so fascinated by it and all that it meant that it was hard work to tear myself away from it. It marks a great step forward in the field of radio.” “It must have been wonderfully interesting,” remarked Bob. “And yet I suppose that in a year or two something new will be invented that will put even that out of date.” “It’s practically certain that there will be,” assented the doctor. “The miracles of to-day become the commonplaces of to-morrow. That fifty-kilowatt tube that develops twelve horsepower within its narrow walls of glass, wonderful as it is, is bound to be superseded by something better, and the inventor himself would be the first one to admit it. Some of the finest scientific brains in the country are working on the problem, and he would be a bold prophet and probably a false prophet that would set any bounds to its possibilities. “Radio is yet in its infancy,” the doctor concluded, as he rose to go. “But one thing is certain. In the lifetime of those who witnessed its birth it will become a giant—but a benevolent giant who, instead of destroying will re-create our civilization.” THE FOREST RANGER Some days later Bob and Herb and Joe were on their way to Bob’s house to do a little experimenting on the latter’s set, when they were