The Wireless Telegraph 



British navy, similar messages were sent as far 

 as eighty miles. It was clearly demonstrated 

 that a new power had been placed in the hands 

 of a naval commander. "A touch on a button 

 in a flagship is all that is now needed to initiate 

 every tactical evolution in a fleet, and insure an 

 almost automatic precision in the resulting 

 movements of the ships. The flashing lantern is 

 superseded at night, flags and the semaphore by 

 day, or, if these are retained, it is for services 

 purely auxiliary. The hideous and bewildering 

 shrieks of the steam-siren need no longer be heard 

 in a fog, and the uncertain system of gun signals 

 will soon become a thing of the past. " The in- 

 terest of the naval and military strategist in the 

 Marconi apparatus extends far beyond its com- 

 munication of intelligence. Any electrical ap- 

 pliance whatever may be set in motion by the 

 same wave that actuates a telegraphic sounder. 

 A fuse may be ignited, or a motor started and 

 directed, by apparatus connected with the co- 

 herer, for all its minuteness. Mr. Walter Jamie- 



to the northeast of the South Foreland Lighthouse (where 

 there is another wireless-telegraphy installation), and she 

 is about ten miles from the shore, being directly opposite 

 Deal. The information regarding the collision was at once 

 communicated by wireless telegraphy from the disabled 

 lightship to the South Foreland Lighthouse, where Mr. 

 Bullock, assistant to Signer Marconi, received the following 

 message: "We have just been run into by the steamer 

 R. F. Matthews of London. Steamship is standing by us. 

 Our bows very badly damaged." Mr. Bullock immediately 

 forwarded this information to the Trinity House authorities 

 at Ramsgate. Times, April 29, 1899. 

 119 



