NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



But he kept his own counsel. Only his closest 

 friends knew of his hopes or his plans. He came 

 quietly, gave it out that he intended to try signal- 

 ling to the ships passing the Banks on their way 

 across, and so sent up his kites and balloons with 

 hardly a single spectator present. 



Anxious were the days that followed. The 

 balloon broke its moorings and sailed away; the 

 great kite followed. Signer Marconi believed then 

 it was necessary to hang a wire high in the air, to 

 catch the waves as they flashed by. That, the 

 success of the experiments proved, was needless. 

 The curvature of the earth between the coast of 

 England and Newfoundland makes a hill one hun- 

 dred and ten miles high. Professor Fleming be- 

 lieves that water is opaque to these electric- waves ; 

 and, if that be true, they would seem to follow the 

 curving water-line. So, unless the difference in the 

 density of the air counts, he would have caught his 

 signals just as well at the foot of the cliff as three 

 hundred feet above it. 



All that the long, vertical wire seems to do is 

 to afford greater surface. These waves strike it, 

 and are absorbed. The current set up in the re- 

 ceiving wire is intensified, until it becomes strong 

 enough to affect the coherer. 



But when an explorer steps out into the un- 

 known, he does not go marching boldly with 



316 



