Page:Canadian patent 142352.djvu/3

 tions from the end of the wire, and in consequence of the interference of the impressed and reflected oscillations the phenomenon of "stationary waves" with maxima and minima in definite fixed positions is produced. In any case the existence of these waves indicates that some of the outgoing waves have reached the boundaries of the conducting-path and have been reflected from the same. Now I have discovered that notwithstanding its vast dimensions and contrary to all observations heretofore made the terrestrial globe may in a large part or as a whole behave toward disturbance impressed upon it in the same maner as a conductor of limited size, this fact being demonstrated by novel phenomena, which I shall hereinafter describe.

In the course of certain investigations which I carried on for the purpose of studying the effects of lightning discharges upon the electrical condition of the earth I observed that sensitive receiving instruments arranged so as to be capable of responding to electrical disturbances created by the discharges at times failed to respond when they should have done so, and upon inquiring into the causes of this unexpected behavior I discovered it to be due to the character of the electrical waves which were produced in the earth by the lightning discharges and which had nodal regions following at definite distances the shifting source of the disturbances. From data obtained in a large number of observations of the maxima and minima of these waves I found their length to vary approximately from twenty-five to seventy kilometers, and there results and certain theoretical deductions led me to the conclusion that waves of this kind may be of still more widely differing lengths, the extreme limits being imposed by the physical dimensions and