A little later he was signalling from Niton in the Isle of Wight to the mainland and to the far west at the Lizard. The first wireless telegram which was actually paid for was sent by Lord Kelvin, the father of cable telegraphy, from Niton to the mainland, whence it was transmitted by land wires to Sir George Stokes. This incident, so interesting because of its marking a stage in the history of this great invention, also because of the persons concerned, occurred in 1898. But Marconi was quickly increasing the range of his apparatus far beyond anything already mentioned. He journeyed in the Italian warship _Carlo Alberto_ as far north as Cronstadt and as far east as Italy, keeping in communication with England all the time. Then he crossed the Atlantic, again keeping up communication with England the greater part of the journey. Raising his wires to a great height by means of kites he was soon able to signal from Nova Scotia to the great station just previously built at Poldhu in Cornwall, and then wireless telegraphy from land to land across the great ocean became an accomplished fact. We all know how things have progressed since then. A telegram by Marconi is as commonplace to-day as a telegram by cable. The British Government is now engaged upon a series of stations dotted about the globe in such a way that every part of the widely separated British Empire shall be in constant touch with every other part by wireless telegraphy. In other words, the range of the system has now become such that nothing further is needed. The British Admiralty has a few wires slung to posts on the top of the offices in London, and those few wires enable touch to be maintained with ships. As almost every intelligent newspaper reader in Great Britain knows, the Germans were in the habit, during the war, of sending news to the United States by wireless telegraphy, which news was always picked up by the Admiralty installation and circulated to the British newspapers, often to the amusement of their British readers. The famous _Emden_, too, which had such a run of success until it encountered the Australian cruiser _Sydney_, met its end entirely through the intervention of wireless telegraphy. These incidents give us a good idea of the usefulness of wireless in naval warfare. In military work it is used chiefly in connection with air-craft, but of that more will be said in another chapter. [Illustration: TRANSMITTER. RECEIVER. DIAGRAM SHOWING THE PRINCIPLE BY WHICH THE AERIALS ARE CONNECTED TO THE APPARATUS.] CHAPTER XXI WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY IN WAR The history of this wonderful invention has been described in the preceding chapter. Now we will see how it is applied in warfare.