Waterbury Democrat., 1900-11-10

Morse register and made great inl-
 provements in electro magnets It was
 Tn 1887 that Morse's telegraphic instru-
 ment, so simple and efficacious that 1t
 IS used in modified form today, was
 nrst exhibited, and that same year
 StelnheiPs telegraph, extending F
 miles, with a single wire and the use Of
 the earth ts complete the circuit traced
 lines aaa dots on ribbons et paper.
 Many great minds were engaged upon
 the problem of telsEraphy when Morse
 nlea his caveat fer patent in 1S37 and
 that very year Wheatstsne and Cooke | in England tsek cut . patent for an
 instrument of their swn
 i It is just co years since 2 patent was
 granted Morse for his telesraphic in
 strument and sS since he brought it into practical use over the first line erecte1
 6etWeen Washington and Baltimore Since then has come the vast develop-
 ment of the land lines and the subma-
 rlne cables-the first of the latter, by the way, having been laid between Governors island and the Battery New York. and almost immediately carried away on the anchor of an intruding vessel.
 As with the discovery, or, rather, the development, of telecraphy by means Of Wires and cables, so it was with this latest and in some respects moro won derful science of wireless telagraphy.
 It is question for experts to decide
 whether Faraday or Henry was the
 true discoverer of electric Wayes CT tha prspounder of 2 theory respecting their propulsion, but Clerl. Maxwell. the
 Scotch physicist who died Sc late as 1879. crystallized their theories into fact by h1s extensive experiments and proved that the waves or undulati0ns of electricity could be transmitted
 through the air in the same manner as light and with the same rapidity.
 A German scientist named Heinrich Hertz verified these theories and e1per- tmsnts, carrying forward the work ts tho time of his death in 1895. and made such progress that the unaula- tions were named, after him, "Hsrtzian waves" The Russian Popof success- fully sent messages by them five years ago, in 1895; Branly and Ducretst Frenchmen, invented receivers for reg isterfng them, so that men of several nationaities are entitled to the honor of having established the law that gov- ernS the phenomena. Suddenly there appeared one Of another nationality, an Italian named Righi of Bologna, who had hardly published his account Of some improvements he had made when his laurels were wrsstsd from him ty his pupil, Guglielnlo Marconi, then Snly 21 years old. It may have been by in tuition, or from remarkable grasp of the subject, but there is no doubt that Marconi, like ths great American in- ventors. Thomas A. Edison and Nicola Tesla. is natural born genius" and was able to advance farther than any of his predecessors. Iis availsd him self of all the inventions and discover ies that had been made before and has been declared a "practician," rather than an inventor. But, whatever his peculiar gift, whether az an sriEinatoy or adapter of other mems inventions, if was through him that wireless telegra- ohy received its greatest impetus.
 No one man can claim the glory or | achieving this great discovery, and 1t might seem unjust to grant ono pat ent and refuse it to another. In fact | the validity of M2rconiS patents has l been questioned in some particulars. | the French, for instance, advancing the l claim for precedence in the practical | use of electric waves fer transmission ] of messages, and especially fer N. Eranly's invention of that msst essen tial feature of the receiving instru- ment, the "cehersr.' Indeed, tho his tory of all past discoveries of like mag nituds teaches uS that the individual is nsthin2-the cumulative impulse of the century or the cycle IS everything. For few years, say for the duration of patent, one man or company may control the invention and receive hs usufruct, but in the end ths world will be the beneficiary.
 However, it was Sixner Marconi, a by birth, but whose mother was an English woman, who gathered all the threads of the various inven- tions together and placed them before Mrecked entailiur 2 loss of SAA Iiyex