i86 RAY STANNARD BAKER 



Third — The third invention is in some respects the most 

 wonderful of the three. Technically, it is called an electric 

 interrupter or valve. ''If a long list of present day desiderata 

 were drawn up," says the Electrical World and Engineer, ''it 

 would perhaps contain no item of more immediate importance 

 than an interrupter which shall be . . . inexpensive and 

 simple of application." This is the view of science; and there- 

 fore this device is one upon which a great many inventors, 

 including Mr. Marconi, have recently been working; and Mr. 

 Hewitt has been fortunate in producing the much needed 

 successful apparatus. 



The chief demand for an interrupter has come from the 

 scores of experimenters who are working with wireless teleg- 

 raphy. In 1894 Mr. Marconi began communicating through 

 space without wires, and it may be said that wireless teleg- 

 raphy has ever since been the world's imminent invention. 

 Who has not read with profound interest the news of Mr. 

 Marconi's success, the gradual increases of his distances? 

 Who has not sympathized with his effort to perfect his ma- 

 chine, to produce a tuning apparatus by means of which 

 messages flying through space could be kept secret? And 

 here at last has come the invention which science most needed 

 to complete and vitalize Marconi's work. By means of Mr. 

 Hewitt's interrupter, the simplicity of which is as astonishing 

 as its efficiency, the whole problem has been suddenly and 

 easily solved. 



Mr. Hewitt's new interrupter may, indeed, be called the 

 enacting clause of wireless telegraphy. By its use the trans- 

 mission of powerful and persistent electrical waves is reduced 

 to scientific accuracy. The apparatus is not only cheap, 

 light, and simple, but it is also a great saver of electrical 

 power. 



Mr. Hewitt's achievements possess a peculiar interest for 

 the people of this country. The inventor is an American of 

 Americans. Born to wealth, the grandson of the famous 

 philanthropist, Peter Cooper, the son of Abraham S. Hewitt, 

 one of the foremost citizens and statesmen of New York, Mr. 

 Hewitt might have led a life of leisure and ease, but he has 

 preferred to win his successes in the American way, by un- 



