MARCH 



3648 



MARCONI 



THE STORY 



AhjMarch! we know thou art 

 Kind-hearted, spite of ugly looks 



and threats, 



And,out of sight, art pursing 

 Aprils violets! 



Helen Hunt Jack 



.ARCH, the "windy month" that 

 ushers in the spring. Its name, which has come 

 down from ancient time's, was given it in honor 

 of the war-god Mars, but had no reference to 

 the character of the month, for March in Italy 

 is not the wild, blustering month that it is in 

 more northerly latitudes. The vernal equinox, 

 which marks the beginning of spring, falls on 

 the twenty-first, and the month is thus partly 

 winter and partly spring. In its character, too, 

 it partakes of the traits of both seasons, for its 

 cold and its storms are often broken in upon 

 by days of real spring mildness and sunshine. 

 The special gem of the month is the heliotrope 

 or bloodstone, and the special flower, the violet, 

 but in Canada and the northern part of the 

 United States the violet does not come until 

 after March is past. 



History of the Month. In the modern year 

 March is the third month, but in the early 

 Roman calendar it was the first. When Julius 

 Caesar made his reforms in chronology he made 

 it the third month. Though it retained from 

 that time the position he had given it in the 

 calendar year, many of the European countries 

 continued for centuries to regard it as the first 

 of the legal year. England, for instance, did 

 not begin to reckon its legal year from January 

 until after the middle of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury. March has had no such variations in 

 length as have some of the other months, its 

 thirty-one days having remained constant from 

 the first. 



Popular Sayings. There have been an un- 

 usual number of superstitions connected with 

 March, quite without foundation. One, which 

 is still quoted, concerns its weather. ^'If March 

 comes in like a lion," the saying is, "it will go 

 out like a lamb;" if, on the other hand, the 

 first day of March is balmy and "lamblike," the 

 last day is certain to be stormy. Another old 

 saying declares that the three last days of the 

 month are "borrowed" from April, while a third 

 calls the first three days "blind days" and de- 



clares them to be unlucky. It is not so very 

 long ago that farmers held so firmly to this be- 

 lief that they would not plant seed on those 

 days. 



Special Days. There are no general holidays 

 in March, but Texas celebrates the second day 

 of the month as the anniversary of its inde- 

 pendence from Mexico. March 4 of every 

 fourth year is of special interest to the people 

 of the United States as the inauguration day 

 of the President. 



MARCONI, mahrko'nee, GUGLIELMO (1875- 

 ), an Italian electrician, famed as the in- 

 ventor of one of the marvels of the modern 

 age practical wireless telegraphy. Through 

 him thousands of lives and property of un- 

 known value have 

 been saved from 

 destruction, for 

 ships at sea, no 

 matter how far 

 from a friendly 

 harbor, may now 

 send news of dan- 

 ger or catastro- 

 phe and receive 

 help from vessels 

 within a radius of 

 hundreds of miles. 

 The discoverer of 

 practical wireless 

 telegraphy was 

 born near Bo- 

 logna, Italy, and 

 was educated at Leghorn and at the University 

 of Bologna. An an early age he showed deep 

 interest in, and remarkable aptitude for, elec- 

 trical science. When but twenty years of age he 

 had made successful experiments in the trans- 

 mission of messages by means of waves through 

 earth and air. Then, as from time immemo- 

 rial, the old adage, "A prophet is not without 

 honor, save in his own country," held true. In 

 spite of successful experiments made at Griffone 



GUGLIELMO MARCONI 

 Through his inventive gen- 

 ius men may send messages 

 5,000 miles through the air, 

 without wire, poles or other 

 equipment between the ter- 

 minals. 



