Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/965

 �IN an article by R. G. Micklam in the Wireless World recently an interesting simplified method of committing to memory the Morse Code by the use of a succession of what may be termed mne- monic groups was given. He takes us on a mental trip to ■ Egypt, where we seat our- selves directly in front of the Pyramid of Cheops. We note, as we do so, a group of Arabs standing by, who have evidently re- ceived a radiogram from England apprising them of our advent, for no sooner are we comfortably seated than they race away and begin scrambling up the face of this 6,000- year-old monument. Having reached their appointed places, they squat down simul- taneously, clasping their arms around their shins and sinking their chins on their knees, so that they appear to us, some 500 ft. away, like a collection of glorified full- stops, their blue galabiehs forming a pleas- ing contrast against the light brown ridges of the pyramid. We notice, too, that they have arranged themselves in a sym- metrical group, as in Fig. 1, and we turn to a Dragoman standing by to ask what this figure may mean. He tells us that the Arabs take us for mere tourists (Pshaw!) and want to earn "backsheesh." Well, nobody begrudges an honest man a mouth- ful of bread; on the other hand, by quite a happy coincidence the Arabic word for bread is "eish" and these cunning fellows have so grouped themselves as to portray in Morse Code the four letters composing that word, since one dot (.) represents the letter E, two dots (. .) represent I, three dots (...) S and four dots H, and if this is

��how we are to learn the Morse alphabet, it promises to be quite a simple matter.

The second evolution appears to be the preliminary to a precipitate roll down the oblique face of the pyramid, as the six men composing the three upper groups suddenly straighten themselves out, as in Fig. 2, and we are on the point of wirelessing to beg them not on any account to break their Egyptian necks for the mere gratification of our unworthy selves, when we are given to understand they threaten nothing more violent or deadly than the representation of three further code letters, the topmost man now describing himself as a T ( — ), the

���Fig. 1. The Arabic word for bread "eish" spelled out with human figures

second two making out that they represent

M, while the third group aver it is

they not we who should be surprised, since

they collectively represent O!.

On learning this, however, we begin to feel just a trifle uneasy in our minds, for it can hardly have been a second coincidence that, by a combination of the two groupings, the word "eishtmo," should have been spelt,

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