The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1903-01-21
SOME FACTS
About Marconi's Discovery of
Wireless TelegTaphy.
This Is One of the Greatest Achieve
mentS.

graphic messages have been sent
across the Atlantic. The announce
ment, was made by Signor Marconi,
that he had sent to King Edward,
of England, and King Victor EN-
manuel, of Italy, messages of con-
graduation, and had received ans
wers.
The messages were sent from
Table Head, Cape Breton, to Pold-
hu, Cornwall, the most westerly
point of England. At the former
place, Signor Marconi occupies a
station built expressly for his use
at cost of 100000. 1t consists
of four wooden pillars 225 feet high,
which have been erected on the
bluff, itself SEVENTH five feet above
the level of the sea. The pillars
stand at the corners of a square in
the centre of which is the operat-
ing-room. The towers are connect
ed near the top by wires, from
which hang large number of cop
per wires, the ends of which enter
the operating-roOm. In this room
is transmitter Of tremendous pow
er and receiver of exceedingly
delicate capacity. There is no other
instrument or any apparent con-
nection between the operator and
the person he is talking to eighteen
hundred miles away.
The beginning of the expert
ments, which, have now had so
triumphant an outcome, was made
in 1895, on a farm near Bologna,
Italy. William Marconi, then a
youth barely twenty years of age,
set up two poles eighty inches high
and 100 feet apart. On the top of
each pole he placed tin box, from
which wire ran to an ordinary tel
egraph instrument at the foot of
the pole. There was no wire from
one pole to the other, but signals
made at one pole were received at
the Other. This was the key to the
great discovery. 1t was obvious
that the electric current could ira
vel, at least for a short distance,
without the wire we had deemed es-
sential for its journey. The next
step was to discover the conditions
by which that distance could be in
creased. Marconi doubled the
length of his poles and placed them
farther apart. They were shifted
as far as the signals were received,
until he found that $40 feetwas the
distance that they would travel
from poles thirteen feet four inches
high. The principle was thus es-
tablishod, that, under ordinary con-
ditions, the higher the pole the
longer the distance electricity
would travel without a wire for its
conveyance.
With this discovery, Signor Mar
conf went to England to secure aid
in it's development. Experiments
were made with balloons and kites,
which, while not producing practi-
cal results, proved the soundness OF
his deductions, and established the
principle Of the distance being de-
pendent on the height of the trans
hitting and receiving stations.
They also showed that the distance
in the higher attitudes was much
greater in proportion than in the
i lower. The distance increased not
according to the increase of the
height of the pole, but according to
the square of the height of the pole
Thus, doubling the height of the
pole, increased the distance four
times, and trebling its height in
creased the distance nine times. II
was also found that hills or build
ings intervening, proved no obsta-
Giles to the current. in one exper-
imont there was hill between the
two masts 314 feet higher than