electricity his chief study, and a comfortable income saved him from the
grinding struggle for bare existence that many inventors have had to
endure. Although born in Bologna (in 1874) and bearing an Italian name,
Marconi is half Irish, his mother being a native of Britain. Having been
educated in Bologna, Florence, and Leghorn, Italy's schools may rightly
claim to have had great influence in the shaping of his career. Certain
it is, in any case, that he was well educated, especially in his chosen
branch.

Marconi, like many other inventors, did not discover the means by which
the end was accomplished; he used the discovery of other men, and turned
their impractical theories and inventions to practical uses, and, in
addition, invented many theories of his own. The man who does old things
in a new way, or makes new uses of old inventions, is the one who
achieves great things. And so it was the reading of the discovery of
Hertz that started the boy on the train of thought and the series of
experiments that ended with practical, everyday telegraphy without the
use of wires. To begin with, it is necessary to give some idea of the
medium that carries the wireless messages.

It is known that all matter, even the most compact and solid of
substances, is permeated by what is called ether, and that the
vibrations that make light, heat, and colour are carried by this
mysterious substance as water carries the wave motions on its surface.
This strange substance, ether, which pervades everything, surrounds
everything, and penetrates all things, is mysterious, since it cannot be
seen nor felt, nor made known to the human senses in any way;
colourless, odourless, and intangible in every way, its properties are
only known through the things that it accomplishes that are beyond the
powers of the known elements. Ether has been compared by one writer to