The Wireless Telegraph 



On November 15, 1899, Marconi telegraphed 

 from the American liner St. Paul to the Needles, 

 sixty-six nautical miles away. On December 1 1 

 and 12, 1901, he received wireless signals near 

 St. John's, Newfoundland, sent from Poldhu, 

 Cornwall, England, or a distance of 1,800 miles, 

 a feat which astonished the world. In many 

 cases the telegraphic business to an island is too 

 small to warrant the laying of a cable; hence 

 we find that Trinidad and Tobago are to be 

 joined by the wireless system, as also five islands 

 of the Hawaiian group, eight to sixty-one miles 

 apart. 



A weak point in the first Marconi apparatus 

 was that anybody within the working radius of 

 the sending-instrument could read its messages. 

 To modify this objection secret codes were at 

 times employed, as in commerce and diplomacy. 

 A complete deliverance from this difficulty is 

 promised in attuning a transmitter and a receiver 

 to the same note, so that one receiver, and no 

 other, shall respond to a particular frequency of 

 impulses. The experiments which indicate suc- 

 cess in this vital particular have been conducted 

 by Professor Lodge. 



When electricians, twenty years ago, com- 

 mitted energy to a wire and thus enabled it to go 

 round a corner, they felt that they had done well. 

 The Hertz waves sent abroad by Marconi ask no 

 wire, as they find their way, not round a corner, 

 but through a corner. On May i, 1899, a party 

 of French officers on board the Ib is at Sangatte, 

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