154 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



but these dots are not received or picked up by the appropriate selecting 

 instrument used in the Anders Bull system. 



The matter most interesting to the public at the present time 

 is the long distance telegraphy by Hertzian waves to the accom- 

 plishment of which Mr, Marconi has devoted himself with so much 

 energy of late years. Every one, except perhaps those whose interests 

 may be threatened by his achievements, must accord their hearty 

 admiration of the indomitable perseverance and courage which he has 

 shown in overcoming the immense difficulties which have presented 

 themselves. Five years ago he was engaged in sending signals from 

 Alum Bay, in the Isle of Wight, to Bournemouth, a distance of twelve 

 or fourteen miles; and to-day he has conquered twice that number of 

 hundred miles and succeeded in sending, not merely signals, but 

 long messages of all descriptions over three thousand miles across the 

 Atlantic. Critics there are in abundance, who declare that the process 

 can never become a commercial one, that it will destroy short distance 

 Hertzian telegraphy, or that the multiplication of long distance sta- 

 tions will end in the annihilation of all Hertzian wave teleg^aph5^ No 

 one, however, can contemplate the history of any development of 

 applied science without seriously taking to heart the lesson that the 

 obstacles which arise and which prove serious in any engineering under- 

 taking are never those which occur to armchair critics. Sometimes 

 the seemingly impossible proves the most easy to accomplish, whilst 

 difficulties of a formidable nature often spring up where least expected. 



The long distance transmission is a matter of peculiar interest to 

 the author of these articles, because "he was at an early stage in con- 

 nection with it invited to render Mr. Marconi assistance in the matter.* 

 The particular work entrusted to him was that of planning the elec- 

 trical engineering arrangements of the first power station erected for 

 the production of electric waves for long distance Hertzian wave teleg- 

 raphy at Poldhu, in Cornwall. When Mr. Marconi returned from the 

 United States in the early part of 1900, he had arrived at the con- 

 clusion that the time had come for a serious attempt to accomplish wire- 

 less telegraphy across the Atlantic. Up to that date the project had 

 been an inventor's dream, much discussed, long predicted, but never 

 before practically taken in hand. The only appliances, moreover, which 

 had been used for creating Hertzian waves were induction coils or 

 small transformers, and the greatest distance covered, even by Mr. 

 Marconi himself, had been something like 150 miles over sea. Accord- 

 ingly, to grapple with the difficulty of creating an electric wave capable 

 of making itself felt at a distance of 3,000 miles, even with the delicate 

 receiving appliances invented by Mr. Marconi, seemed to require the 



* See Mr. Marconi's Friday evening discourse at the Royal Institution, 

 June 13, 1902: also Tlie Electrician, Vol. XLIX., p. 390. 



