WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 



about noon, these messages were received repeatedly 

 and unmistakably at the St. Johns' station, and they 

 were again heard at intervals on the following day. 

 The miraculous had been accomplished; a message 

 had crossed the Atlantic and been recorded without 

 the aid of any mechanical conductor except that 

 furnished by nature. 



In the meanwhile, however, other inventors besides 

 Marconi, in almost every other country, had been ex- 

 perimenting, and naval and merchant vessels were being 

 equipped with wireless apparatus. Wireless messages to 

 and from vessels two days after leaving their docks, to 

 and from friends on shore, became a fad on transatlantic 

 liners; and passing vessels fifty or one hundred miles 

 apart communicated important news to each other or 

 "talked" together for hours as they passed. As the 

 sailing points of most vessels are not from the extreme 

 points of land, and as wireless stations are located in 

 such positions, it was possible to send communications 

 from ship to shore several days after the boat had sailed. 

 A steamship sailing from Antwerp, for example, which 

 passed around the southern coast of England without 

 touching, might be able to keep up her communication 

 with shore fully three days after sailing; and Marconi 

 soon improved his instruments so that at a much longer 

 distance messages might be received on shipboard, even 

 when the vessel was unable to send back replies. 



TUNING THE MESSAGES 



In March of 1902, Marconi, on the steamship 

 Philadelphia, was able to receive messages at a dis- 



[61] 



