thousands of failures to be sure, he sent an air message two
miles.

"Of course, people made fun of him. They thought he was a crank, if not
downright crazy and said that his father was very foolish indeed to
encourage him in wasting so much time and money in a way that every
person with common sense could see was worse than merely simple.

"Guglielmo set his rude transmitting apparatus on a pole on one side of
a field and on the other side a corresponding pole was set up and
connected with a receiving apparatus.

"The young inventor's interest must have been keen and his hopes high as
he sat and watched for the tick of his recording instrument, that he
knew should come from the spark sent across the field. Weeks had been
spent in the building of these instruments, now to be tested.

"Suddenly the Morse sounder began to record the distant transmission and
the boy's heart gave an exultant bound--the first wireless message had
been sent and received.

"Many experiments followed. Varying heights of poles were used and it
was found that the distance could be increased in proportion to the
altitude of the poles.

"In these first experiments of the young inventor he used practically
the same methods that he employs to-day. The transmitting apparatus
consisted of electric batteries, an induction coil by which the force of
the current is increased, a telegrapher's key to make and break the
circuit. Batteries were connected with the induction coil and the
telegrapher's key was placed between the battery and the coil.

"One spark made a single dot, a stream of sparks the dash of the Morse
telegraphic code, and with this crude apparatus, sometimes failing to
record the signals, Marconi labored with growing faith. He knew he was
on the right track and persevered. When he had succeeded in sending a
message two miles through the air, Guglielmo determined that it could be
two hundred, or two thousand miles, but he chose a shorter distance to
prove his theory. He went to the English Channel and before long the
world was astounded to learn that this young stranger and experimenter
had sent a wireless message over thirty miles. A little later dispatches
were sent through the air across the English Channel and received from
the Isle of Wight to Land's End, more than one hundred and eighty miles
distant.

"This youth, twenty-one years old, had succeeded in accomplishing a feat
the possibilities of which can hardly yet be conceive