Tuning also makes multiplex wireless telegraphy a possibility; that is, many messages may be sent or received on the same suspended wire. Supposing, for instance, the operator was sending a hurry press despatch to a newspaper. He has two transmitters, tuned differently, connected with his wire. He cuts the despatch in two, sends the first half on one transmitter, and the second on the other, thereby reducing by half the time of transmission. A sort of impression prevails that wireless telegraphy is still largely in the uncertain experimental stage; but, as a matter of fact, it has long since passed from the laboratory to a wide commercial use. Its development since Mr. Marconi's first paper was read, in 1896, and especially since the first message was sent from England to France across the Channel in March, 1899, has been astonishingly rapid. Most of the ships of the great navies of Europe and all the important ocean liners are now fitted with the "wireless" instruments. The system has been recently adopted by the Lloyds of England, the greatest of shipping exchanges. It is being used on many lightships, and the New York _Herald_ receives daily reports from vessels at sea, communicated from a ship station off Nantucket. Were there space to be spared, many incidents might be told showing in what curious and wonderful ways the use of the "wireless" instruments has saved life and property, to say nothing of facilitating business. And it cannot now be long before a regular telegraph business will be conducted between Massachusetts and England, through the new stations. Mr. Marconi informed me that he would be able to build and equip stations on both sides of the Atlantic for less than $150,000, the subsequent charge for maintenance being very small. A cable across the Atlantic costs between $3,000,000 and $4,000,000, and it is a constant source of expenditure for repairs. The inventor will be able to transmit with single instruments about twenty words a minute, and at a cost ridiculously small compared with the present cable tolls. He said in a speech delivered at a dinner given him by the Governor at St. John's that messages which now go by cable at twenty-five cents a word might be sent profitably at a cent a word or less, which is even much cheaper than the very cheapest present rates in America for messages by land wires. It is estimated that about $400,000,000 is invested in cable systems in various parts of the world. If Marconi succeeds as he hopes to succeed, much of the vast network of wires at the bottom of the world's oceans, represented by this investment, will lose its usefulness. It is now the inventor's purpose to push the work of installation between the continents as rapidly as possible, and no one need be surprised if the year 1902 sees his system in practical operation. Along with this transatlantic work he intends to extend his system of transmission between ships at sea and the ports on land, with