302 MARVELS OP THE YEAR igop 



Great strides were made in wireless telegraphy during the year. Only 

 eleven years have elapsed since the time of Marconi's wireless signal at Flat- 

 holm and six years since the exchange of wireless messages across the Atlantic 

 between Cape Breton and Cornwall. During the year the globe was virtually 

 girdled with wireless stations — at Nome, in Hawaii, Hong-Kong, Burmah, 

 Mozambique, Trinidad, Tripoli. Paris talks with Messina, press reports are 

 flashed across the Atlantic, steamships at sea receive daily bulletins. In the 

 winter of 1909 the lives of all the passengers of the steamship Republic were 

 saved by wireless, and after that time the passengers of no less than a dozen 

 other ships were saved in the same way. 



Wireless messages can now be sent regularly 3,000 miles over water and 

 1,000 miles over land. On May 3, 1909, the first wireless messages were sent 

 between New York and Chicago — the record distance by land up to the present 

 time. Stray messages have been picked up at much greater distances, but of 

 course they do not figure in records. They are considered flukes. Nova Scotia 

 to Paris — 3,000 miles — is the record up to date. The crowning demonstration 

 of the usefulness of wireless, however, is the summoning of aid to a ship in 

 distress. Such projects as a wireless fire alarm system for the preservation of 

 forests and wireless weather reports from coast stations are but new fields of 

 endeavor. 



Practicability of wireless telephony has been demonstrated and the war- 

 ships of many navies are now equipped with wireless telephones. The United 

 States Navy was the first to install them, and the best records have been made 

 between our battleships. Until 1908, 200 miles was the farthest that messages 

 could be transmitted, but in March 1909 wireless telephone messages were sent 

 by Dr. Lee DeForrest from the Eiffel Tower in Paris to Marseilles, a distance 

 of 550 miles. This is the record up to date. Great progress is being made 

 by Dr. Lee DeForrest and other inventors, and they predict that the time is not 

 far distant when it will be possible to telephone across the Atlantic. 



The year was the greatest for speed records in the history of the world. 

 It was demonstrated at Clayton, N. J., in December, 1908, that steam driven 

 engines are still king, and that they can run as fast on a curved as on a straight 

 track. One of the big locomotives on the Pennsylvania Railroad in a test 

 held December 5 made a fraction more than ninety-nine miles an hour. This 

 is the world's record for steam locomotives. 



The record speed for electric locomotives is ninety-two miles an hour. 

 This record was made December 6 at Clayton, N. J., by Electric Engine No. 



