experimenting to reduce the noise, and the use of the mercury vapour
invented by Peter Cooper Hewitt will do much to increase the rapidity in
sending.

After much experimenting Marconi discovered that the longer the waves in
the ether the more penetrating and lasting the quality they possessed,
just as long swells on a body of water carry farther and endure longer
than short ones. Moreover, he discovered that if many sending-wires were
used instead of one, and strong electric power was employed instead of
weak, these long, penetrating, enduring waves could be produced. All the
new Marconi stations, therefore, built for long-distance work, are
fitted with many sending-wires, and powerful dynamos are run which are
capable of producing a spark between the silvered knobs as thick as a
man's wrist.

Marconi and several other workers in the field of wireless telegraphy
are now busy experimenting on a system of attunement, or syntony, by
which it will be possible to so adjust the sending instruments that none
but the receiver for whom the message is meant can receive it. He is
working on the principle whereby one tuning-fork, when set vibrating,
will set another of the same pitch humming. This problem is practically
solved now, and in the near future every station, every ship, and each
installation will have its own key, and will respond to none other than
the particular vibrations, wave lengths, or oscillations, for which it
is adjusted.

All through the wonders he has brought about, Marconi, the boy and the
man, has shown but little--he is the strong character that does things
and says little, and his works speak so amazingly, so loudly, that the
personality of the man is obscured.