Boys' second book of inventionsBaker, Ray Stannard
Science
Boys' second book of inventions
Baker, Ray Stannard
Inventions; Technology -- Juvenile literature
I have told in the first "Boys' Book of Inventions" of Guglielmo
Marconi's early experiments. That was a chapter of uncertain beginnings,
of great hopes, of prophecy. This is the sequel, a chapter of
achievement and success. What was only a scientific and inventive
novelty a few years ago has become a great practical enterprise, giving
promise of changing the whole world of men, drawing nations more closely
together, making us near neighbours to the English and the Germans and
the French--in short, shrinking our earth. There may come a time when
we will think no more of sending a Marconigram, or an etheragram, or
whatever is to be the name of the message by wireless telegraphy, to an
acquaintance in England than we now think of calling up our neighbour on
the telephone.
Every one will recall the astonishment that swept over the country in
December, 1901, when there came the first meagre reports of Marconi's
success in telegraphing across the Atlantic Ocean between England and
Newfoundland. At first few would believe the reports, but when Thomas
A. Edison, Graham Bell, and other great inventors and scientists had
expressed their confidence in Marconi's achievement, the whole country,
was ready to hail the young inventor with honours. And his successes
since those December days have been so pronounced--for he had now
sent messages both ways across the Atlantic and at much greater
distances--have more than borne out the promise then made. Wireless
telegrams can now be sent directly from the shore of Massachusetts
to England, and ocean-going ships are being rapidly equipped with the
Marconi apparatus so that they can keep in direct communication with
both continents during every day of the voyage. On some of the great
ships a little newspaper is published, giving the world's news as
received from day to day.
It was the good fortune of the writer to arrive in St. John's,
Newfoundland, during Mr. Marconi's experiments in December, 1901, only
a short time after the famous first message across the Atlantic had been
received. Three months later it was also the writer's privilege to visit
the Marconi station at Poldhu, in Cornwall, England, from which the
message had been sent, Mr. Marconi being then planning his greater work
of placing his invention on a practical basis so that his company could
enter the field of commercial telegraphy. It was the writer's fortune to
have many talks with Mr. Marconi, both in America and in England, to see
him at his experiments, and to write some of the earliest accounts of
his successes. The story here told is the result of these talks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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