1900] Wireless Telegraphy. 247 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, February 2, 1900. 



Alexander Siemens, Esq., M. Inst. C.E., Vice-President, 

 in the Chair. 



Signor G. Marconi, M.Inst. C.E. 



Wireless Telegraphy. 



When Ampere threw out the suggestion that the theory of a universal 

 ether, possessed of merely mechanical properties, might supply the 

 means for explaining electrical facts, which view was upheld by 

 Joseph Henry and Faraday, the veil of mystery which had enveloped 

 electricity began to lift. When Maxwell published, in 1864, his 

 splendi I dynamical theory of the electro-magnetic field, and worked 

 out mathematically the theory of ether waves, and Hertz had proved 

 experimentally the correctness of Maxwell's hypothesis, we obtained, 

 if I may use the words of Professor Fleming, " the greatest insight 

 into the hidden mechanisms of nature which has yet been made by 

 the intellect of man." 



A century of progress such as this has made wireless telegraphy 

 possible. Its basic principles are established in the very nature of 

 electricity itself. Its evolution has placed another great force of 

 nature at our disposal. 



We cannot pay too high a tribute to the genius of Heinrich Hertz, 

 who worked patiently and persistently in a new field of experimental 

 physics, and made what has been called the greatest discovery in 

 electrical science in the latter half of the nineteenth century. He 

 not only brought about a great triumph in the field of theoretical 

 physics, but, by proving Maxwell's mathematical hypothesis, he 

 accomplished a great triumph in the progress of our knowledge of 

 physical agents and physical laws. 



I cannot forbear saying one word as to the eminent electrician 

 who was placed in his last home as recently as Saturday last, for it is 

 manifest that several years ago Professor Hughes was on the verge of 

 a great discovery, and, if he had persevered in his experiments, it 

 seems probable that his name would have been closely connected 

 with wireless telegraphy as it is with so many branches of electrical 

 work, in which he gained so much renown and such great dis- 

 tinction. 



The experimental proof by Hertz, thirteen years ago, of the iden- 

 tity of light and electricity, and the knowledge of how to produce, 

 and how to detect these ether waves, the existence of which had been 

 so far unknown, made possible true wireless telegraphy. I think I 



