SCIENCE IN THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD 



tainly unequaled in any previous field of telegraphic 

 progress. 



Marconi's first attempts at wireless telegraphy were 

 made in his native city of Bologna as early as 1895. 

 The following year he went to London and applied for 

 patents. Here he submitted his plans to the postal- 

 telegraph authorities, having at their head Sir William 

 Preece, himself a prominent investigator in wireless 

 telegraphy. In order to test the wireless apparatus a 

 sending and a receiving station were located on the roof 

 of the post-office building and in a small room a hundred 

 yards away; and the experiments here conducted were 

 followed by other trials at longer distances. 



Early in 1897, Marconi, continuing his experiments 

 in England, made attempts at sending messages a 

 considerable distance over bodies of water. While 

 working at one of these he made the discovery that a 

 long air-wire was most essential to successful communi- 

 cation, even at comparatively short distances. In this 

 experiment he was attempting to send wireless messages 

 to an island a little over three miles from the mainland. 

 One of the poles for supporting air-wires was ninety 

 yards high, but the other one, situated on the cliff of the 

 water's edge, was only about thirty yards in height. 

 For two days unsuccessful attempts were made with this 

 arrangement, and they were watched by several scien- 

 tists who were studying the subject on the spot and 

 assisting Marconi in his efforts. The attempts were 

 about to be abandoned, for the moment at least, as the 

 cause of failure could not be determined, when it oc- 

 curred to the inventor to lengthen the air-wire by 



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