By mid-century, several trends in the development of wireless began to emerge. Electricians coalesced into two groups -- those involved in basic research and the general dissemination of knowledge, and those tinkering and trying to make something work, analogous to the difference between scientists and engineers. Both the scientific and technical press grew both in quantity and quality, perhaps as a direct result of the telegraph (Czitrom, 1982, 3-29), and it became easier to publish and access information about these developments. Although many inventors worked alone, a growing number of electricians joined associations formed for the purpose of disseminating information and promoting their expertise (Marvin, 1988, 9-62). And there was more interest in protecting inventions through the patent process.

James Clerk Maxwell, a Scottish mathematician and professor at Cambridge, began to develop a theory of electrical behavior based on the work of Faraday, Henry, and others. It was Maxwell's idea that electricity traveled through the air in waves, in a method similar to and at the same speed as light. He also believed that he could simplify the explanation of this behavior by expressing it mathematically. After more than a decade of experimentation, he published Electricity and Magnetism in 1873. Maxwell's formulae and his prediction of the existence of electromagnetic waves would be the basis for the development of radio. But it would be another decade before anyone would attempt practical applications of Maxwell's ideas, and more than 20 years before Marconi and others would transmit and receive useful signals in this manner (Appleyard, 1930, 330; Dunlap, 1944, 65-68; Skilling 1948, 160-171). In the meantime, wireless electricians concentrated on the proven technologies of conduction and induction.

Mahlon Loomis, a Washington DC, dentist, became interested in electricity through the work of his elder brother and a Professor Lowell whose lectures he attended in Boston. Loomis devised a conduction telegraph system that used the air as its primary conductor and the ground as a return. It also used atmospheric electricity, or lightning, in place of batteries or some other power source. In 1866, he suspended two kites from mountains in Northern Virginia separated by 14 miles. Each kite had a copper grid affixed and was attached to the ground by wire. When Loomis opened and closed a connection on one kite wire, the action would deflect a galvanometer needle attached to the other (Loomis Papers). He also noted that the kites were elevated to approximately the same height, probably a tuned aerial conductor or antenna array (Naslund, 1979). Loomis was more interested, however, in promoting the ability of his device to draw electricity from the ether, and he failed to see the significance of his antenna design. In a succession of hard luck incidents, three groups of investors were wiped out by the financial panic of 1869, the Chicago fire of 1871, and the stock market crash of 1873. He petitioned Congress for a $50,000 grant which was rejected (Appleby, 1967, 54-70). Congress nevertheless incorporated Loomis's company, and he received a patent (Loomis, 1872) but was never able to develop the idea commercially (Loomis, 1914; Rice, 1974).

Another American, William Henry Ward, was interested in aerial telegraphy, but his idea was totally different from the Loomis design. Ward reasoned that if electricity moved through the air, moving the air itself would transmit the signal. His device, depicted in Figure 3 (below), consisted of a series of towers, mounted on mountain tops, which looked like inverted funnels with their tips bent at a right angle. The towers were vented so as to force air upward across a simple condenser, or antenna, made of two dissimilar metals. When exposed to the moisture of the upper atmosphere, the condenser would generate a small electrical charge which the air current would push toward the next tower. Ward received a patent (Ward, 1872) for this absurd device but never constructed.