It was only a few months afterward that Marconi, from his first station in the United States, at Wellfleet, Cape Cod, Mass., sent a message direct to Poldhu, three thousand miles.  At frequent intervals messages go from one country to the other across the ocean, carried through fog, unaffected by the winds, and following the curvature of the earth, without the aid of wires.

Again the unassuming nature of the young Italian was shown.  There was no brass band nor display of national colours in honour of the great achievement; it was all accomplished quietly, and suddenly the world woke up to find that the thing had been done.  Then the great personages on both sides of the water congratulated and complimented each other by Marconi’s wireless system.

At Marconi’s new station at Glace Bay, Cape Breton, and at the powerful station at Wellfleet, Cape Cod, the receiving and sending wires are supported by four great towers more than two hundred feet high.  Many wires are used instead of one, and much greater power is of course employed than at first, but the marvellously simple principle is the same that was used in the garden at Bologna.  The coherer has been displaced by a new device invented by Marconi, called a magnetic detector, by which the ether waves are aided by a stronger current to record the message.  The effect is the same, but the method is entirely different.

The sending of a long-distance message is a spectacular thing.  Current of great power is used, and the spark is a blinding flash accompanied by deafening noises that suggest a volley from rifles.  But Marconi is experimenting to reduce the noise, and the use of the mercury vapour invented by Peter Cooper Hewitt will do much to increase the rapidity in sending.

After much experimenting Marconi discovered that the longer the waves in the ether the more penetrating and lasting the quality they possessed, just as long swells on a body of water carry farther and endure longer than short ones.  Moreover, he discovered that if many sending-wires were used instead of one, and strong electric power was employed instead of weak, these long, penetrating, enduring waves could be produced.  All the new Marconi stations, therefore, built for long-distance work, are fitted with many sending-wires, and powerful dynamos are run which are capable of producing a spark between the silvered knobs as thick as a man’s wrist.

Marconi and several other workers in the field of wireless telegraphy are now busy experimenting on a system of attunement, or syntony, by which it will be possible to so adjust the sending instruments that none but the receiver for whom the message is meant can receive it.  He is working on the principle whereby one tuning-fork, when set vibrating, will set another of the same pitch humming.  This problem is practically solved now, and in the near future every station, every ship, and each installation will have its own key, and will respond to none other than the particular vibrations, wave lengths, or oscillations, for which it is adjusted.