a view to enabling the shore stations to maintain constant communication with vessels all the way across the Atlantic. If he succeeds in doing this, there will at last be no escape for the weary from the daily news of the world, so long one of the advantages of an ocean voyage. For every morning each ship, though in mid-ocean, will get its bulletin of news, the ship's printing-press will strike it off, and it will be served hot with the coffee. Yet think what such a system will mean to ships in distress, and how often it will relieve the anxiety of friends awaiting the delayed voyager. Mr. Marconi's faith in his invention is boundless. He told me that one of the projects which he hoped soon to attempt was to communicate between England and New Zealand. If the electric waves follow the curvature of the earth, as the Newfoundland experiments indicate, he sees no reason why he should not send signals 6,000 or 10,000 miles as easily as 2,000. Then there is the whole question of the use of wireless telegraphy on land, a subject hardly studied, though messages have already been sent upward of sixty miles overland. The new system will certainly prove an important adjunct on land in war-time, for it will enable generals to signal, as they have done in South Africa, over comparatively long distances in fog and storm, and over stretches where it might be impossible for the telegraph corps to string wires or for couriers to pass on account of the presence of the enemy. [Illustration: Work on the Smith Point Lighthouse Stopped by a Violent Storm. _Just after the cylinder had been set in place, and while the workmen were hurrying to stow sufficient ballast to secure it against a heavy sea, a storm forced the attending steamer to draw away. One of the barges was almost overturned, and a lifeboat was driven against the cylinder and crushed to pieces._] CHAPTER VIII SEA-BUILDERS _The Story of Lighthouse Building--Stone-tower Lighthouses, Iron Pile Lighthouses, and Steel Cylinder Lighthouses_