II. Mahlon Loomis - First Wireless Telegrapher (OTL)
Not a lot of details are available about Mahlon Loomis’ early life. This is unfortunate because it is often interesting to see how a young inventive mind grows. We do, however, know that he was surrounded by educated minds, as his father was a founder of the AMERICAN EPHEMERIS and NATIONAL ALMANAC. In addition to this, his older brother George, was an inventor and holder of several patents himself.
The Start Of The Electrical Days
About 1860, Mahlon Loomis became interested in electricity, and his first application of this was an experiment in the forced increase of growth in plants. This was achieved by buried metal plates connected to an electrical current furnished by batteries.In this same time period Mahlon became interested in using the electrical charges obtainable from the upper atmosphere by means of kites carrying metal wires. At first he planned to use this natural source of electricity to replace batteries on a telegraph circuit. It is noted in many references that this was something that was actually achieved on a telegraph line that was 400 miles long.
Later on, from experiments in this area, Mahlon discovered that a kite sent aloft would affect the flow of current in another kite that was some distance away from the first kite.This set him on a path of developing it as a system of wireless telegraphy for practical long distance communications.
It Actually Works!
The year is 1868, and Mahlon Loomis demonstrates to a group of Congressmen and eminent scientists a wireless "communication" system between two sites 14 to 18 miles apart. There seems to be some discrepancy as to the distance in the various records that exist, however in the picture that was drawn by Mahlon Loomis, 14 miles is mentioned. This and many other pictures and notes are on file in the Library of Congress. From one mountain peak he sent up a kite, the bottom of which was covered with thin copper gauze, and the kite string was copper wire. He connected this apparatus up to a galvometer that had the other end of the circuit connected to ground. Immediately the galvometer showed the passage of current!
He then set up an identical outfit on a mountain peak 18 miles away, to send. He would touch this second kites wire to ground and by this action reduced the voltage of the charged stratum and lowered the deflection in the galvometer attached to the other kite at first location we discussed.
There were problems with the communications system sometimes. It seemed that if one of the kites was at the wrong height, the system would not work. This led Loomis to believe that there were different areas in the atmosphere, and depending which area you were in, would control if the communication would work or not. There were even days when the system just would not work at all. In thinking about that, I suppose it could be due to the electrostatic charge in the atmosphere that existed at that time during the experiment.
Drawing done by Mahlon Loomis, showing 14 miles between mountains.
From Library of Congress Archives.
Mahlon Seeks the Government’s Help
Senator Charles Sumner, encouraged by a previous government grant to Samuel F.B. Morse, introduced a bill into the Senate on January 13, 1869. The "Loomis Aerial Telegraph Bill" asked for an act of incorporation for the Loomis Aerial Telegraph Company, and for the appropriation of $50,000 to help perfect Loomis’s discovery and make it practical. Loomis had proposed a system where wireless telegraph messages could be sent across the Atlantic at 1/16 the cost of what it was using a Trans-Atlantic cable. In an address to Congress, Loomis explained his system worked by: "Causing electrical vibrations or waves to pass around the world, as upon the surface of some quiet lake one wave circlet follows another from the point of the disturbance to the remotest shores, so that from any other mountain top upon the globe another conductor, which shall pierce this plane and receive the impressed vibration, may be connected to an indicator which will mark the length and duration of the vibration; and indicate by any agreed system of notation, convertible into human language, the message of the operator at the point of the first disturbance."
The bill, although gaining the support of a few Congressmen, was thought to be a fraud by many others. It was shuttled from committee to committee with much delay. On May 20 thru 21, 1872, a lengthy discussion took place in the House. The issue of appropriations had been removed from the bill, and issue of incorporation was all that remained of the Loomis bill.
The newspapers became extremely active on the Loomis issue, unfortunately the majority of them were not favorable to the concept of wireless communication. Their reports ranged from polite skepticism to outright ridicule and allegations of the Loomis method being a fraud!
A copy of the Loomis Bill was also submitted to the committee for patents. On July 30, 1872, Patent number 129,971 was issued to Mahlon Loomis. On January 6, 1873, the Loomis Bill was brought to a vote in the Senate and passed by a vote of 29 to 12, with 33 Senators absent. The record shows that neither of Virginia's Senators voted for the bill, despite the fact that Loomis was a resident there. Five days later the bill was signed into law by President Grant, thus incorporating the Loomis Aerial Telegraph Company. What had been achieved by this? Actually, not very much! Although Loomis now had a legal corporation, it was not allowed to operate outside Washington D.C. with out the prior consent of the state the corporation wished to operate within.
The Twilight Years and Fade to Obscurity
During the later years of his life, Mahlon worked as a dentist only to the extent to get some more capital to use to purchase goods for his electrical and communications experiments. In the late 1870’s a distance was obtained of 20 miles. In this experiment he erected steel masts on top of wooden towers (these replaced the kites of the earlier experiments) and reportably maintained fairly reliable communications for periods of months at a time.
Mahlon Loomis was heard to say many time the following statement:
"I know that I am regarded as a crank, perhaps a fool by some, and as to the latter, possibly I am, for I could have discarded this thing entirely and turned my attention to making money (...)I have not only discovered a new world, but the means to invade it. My compensation is poverty, contempt, neglect, forgetfulness. In the distant future, when the possibilities of this discovery are more fully developed, public attention will be directed to it’s originator, and the congressional records will furnish the indisputable proof that the credit belongs to me."
On October 13,1886, after a weeks long illness, Mahlon Loomis died at his brother’s country home in Terra Alta, West Virginia ; he was 60 years old. During the illness, his brother George reported that Mahlon was in hopes that the world would realize and use his invention. His actions did not catch the attention of the world as those experiments and successes that Marconi had. It almost seems that he was just a generation ahead of his time. The wireless system that was to happen had to wait another generation until there would be a bit more knowledge to draw upon to bring it to it’s fulfillment and usefulness.
Source
Mahlon Loomis - First Wireless Telegrapher
by Edward A. Sharpe, Archivist SMEC 1989 ( now SMECC 2003)