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Jack Heaton
You know the Eiffel Tower was built in the midst of the ornamental park of the Champ de Mars as the biggest attraction of the Paris Exposition in 1885. When it was built wireless was an unknown means of communication and when the Exposition was over there was much talk about wrecking it, for it was not only useless but the Parisians thought it a hideous object to be stuck up in a park.
But when Marconi showed the world how to send messages across the ocean, and since one of the chief factors for long distance wireless transmission was a high aerial, it didn’t take half-an-eye for the French War Department to see that the Eiffel Tower, which was very nearly a thousand feet high, was just the thing to support an aerial.
Captain Ferrié, who had given much time to developing wireless apparatus for the Army, was put in charge of installing a small plant of about 15 horse-power simply to see what could be done with it. This experimental plant at once proved very useful in sending out time signals and weather reports to ships at sea and for the Navy Department to issue orders to Naval Commanders, but its greatest value was