recorded the first wireless message sent across the British Channel from
Boulogne in 1899--just the letters V M and three or four words in the
Morse alphabet of dots and dashes. He had bridged that space of stormy,
restless water with an invisible, intangible something that could be
neither seen, felt, nor heard, and yet was stronger and surer than
steel--a connection that nothing could interrupt, that no barrier could
prevent. The first message from England to France was soon followed by
one to M. Branly, the inventor of the coherer, that made the receiving
of the message possible, and one to the queen of Marconi's country. The
inventor's march of progress was rapid after this--stations were
established at various points all around the coast of England; vessels
were equipped with the apparatus so that they might talk to the mainland
and to one another. England's great dogs of war, her battle-ships,
fought an imaginary war with one another and the orders were flashed
from the flagship to the fighters, and from the Admiral's cabin to the
shore, in spite of fog and great stretches of open water heaving
between.

[Illustration: THE WIRELESS TELEGRAPH STATION AT GLACÉ BAY]

A lightship anchored off the coast of England was fitted with the
Marconi apparatus and served to warn several vessels of impending
danger, and at last, after a collision in the dark and fog, saved the
men who were aboard of her by sending a wireless message to the mainland
for help.

From the very beginning Marconi had set a high standard for himself. He
worked for an end that should be both commercially practical and
universal. When he had spanned the Channel with his wireless messages,
he immediately set to work to fling the ether waves farther and farther.