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
jelly which, filling all space, serves as a setting for the planets,
moons, and stars, and, in fact, all solid substances; and as a bowl of
jelly carries a plum, so all solid things float in it.

Heinrich Hertz discovered that in addition to the light, heat, and
colour waves carried by ether, this substance also served to carry
electric waves or vibrations, so that electric impulses could be sent
from one place to another without the aid of wires. These electric waves
have been named "Hertzian waves," in honour of their discoverer; but it
remained for Marconi, who first conceived their value, to put them to
practical use. But for a year he did not attempt to work out his plan,
thinking that all the world of scientists were studying the problem. The
expected did not happen, however. No news of wireless telegraphy
reached the young Italian, and so he set to work at his father's farm in
Bologna to develop his idea.

[Illustration: THE MARCONI STATION AT GLACE BAY, CAPE BRETON
From the wires hung to these towers are sent the messages that carry
clear across to England.]

And so the boy began to work out his great idea with a dogged
determination to succeed, and with the thought constantly in mind
spurring him on that it was more than likely that some other scientist
was striving with might and main to gain the same end.

His father's farm was his first field of operations, the small
beginnings of experiments that were later to stretch across many
hu