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 GLACE 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.
Even then the project of spanning the Atlantic was in his mind.

On the coast of Cornwall, near Penzance, England, Marconi erected a
great station. A forest of tall poles were set up, and from the wires
strung from one to the other hung a whole group of wires which were in
turn connected to the transmitting apparatus. From a little distance the
station looked for all the world like ships' masts that had been taken
out and ranged in a circle round the low buildings. This was the station
of Poldhu, from which Marconi planned to send vibrations in the ether
that would reach clear across to St. Johns, Newfoundland, on the other
side of the Atlantic--more than two thousand miles away. A power-driven
dynamo took the place of the more feeble batteries at Poldhu, converters
to increase the power displaced the induction coil, and many
sending-wires, or antennae, were used instead of one.

On Signal Hill, at St. Johns, Newfoundland--a bold bluff overlooking the
sea--a group of men worked for several days, first in the little stone
house at the brink of the bluff, setting up some electric apparatus; and
later, on the flat ground nearby, the same men were very busy flying a
great kite and raising a balloon. There was no doubt about the
earnestness of these men: they were not raising that kite for fun. They
worked with care and yet with an eagerness that no boy ever displays
when setting his home-made or store flyer to the breeze. They had har