Fessenden, Reginald A. The Deluged Civilization of the Caucasus Isthmus, Chapter XI.
Massachusetts Bible Society, Boston, Mass. 1927 12”x 8.75”: 4pp of maps, (ii), 21pp. Printed on very heavy stock, and bound in wrappers. Limited edition of 250 copies, this being copy #XIII. This is copy XIII, inscribed by Fessenden to the “Congressional Library” (Library of Congress”).
Good/VG copy, the oversize pamphlet having a few bumps and short tears and dusting to the printed wrappers. The text however is FINE. $250
Provenance: Library of Congress, with their “surplus/duplicate” rubber stamp on the rear cover.
Fessenden was a great figure in the history of radio (who was awarded over 500 patents), and later in life undertook a project to find and identify the pre-Noahic flood civilizations in the Caucasus. There’s not much I can say about that part of his career, so I won’t say anything. I do know that there is a somewhat tortured history to the publication of this work, bits and pieces published here and there, with a large part of the work edited and published post-death by Fessenden’s son.
Reginald A. Fessenden (1866-1932), father of radiotelephony (which was what wireless transmission of speech was called at the time), radio and SONAR pioneer.
Fessenden is best known for his pioneering work developing radio technology, including the foundations of amplitude modulation (AM) radio. (“In 1900 Fessenden left the university to conduct experiments in wireless telegraphy for the U.S. Weather Bureau, which wanted to adapt radiotelegraphy to weather forecasting. Impatient with the simple on-off transmission of Morse Code signals, he became interested in transmitting continuous sound, particularly that of the human voice. He developed the idea of superimposing an electric signal, oscillating at the frequencies of sound waves, upon a radio wave of constant frequency, so as to modulate the amplitude of the radio wave into the shape of the sound wave. “)==Encyclopedia Britannica
His achievements included the first transmission of speech by radio (1900), and the first two-way radiotelegraphic communication across the Atlantic Ocean (1906). In 1932 he reported that, in late 1906, he also made the first radio broadcast of entertainment and music, although a lack of verifiable details has led to some doubts about this claim. John Scott Medal, which included a cash prize of $800, for “his invention of a reception scheme for continuous wave telegraphy and telephony”–enwikipedia
“Canadian radio pioneer who on Christmas Eve in 1906 broadcast the first program of music and voice ever transmitted over long distances.”–Encyclopedia Britannica
responding to the Titanic disaster in 1912 Fessenden is credited with the invention and development of the first modern transducer used in a sonar. Thomas R. Howarth and Geoffrey R. Moss, “The Fessenden Oscillator: The first sonar transducer”, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 136, 2131 (2014)