eyes flashed, and his heart gave an exultant bound—­the first wireless message had been sent and received, and a new marvel had been added to the list of world’s wonders.  The quiet farm was the scene of many succeeding experiments, the place having been put at his disposal by his appreciative father, and in addition ample funds were generously supplied from the same source.  Different heights of poles were tried, and it was found that the distance could be increased in proportion to the altitude of the pole bearing the receiving and transmitting tin boxes or “capacities”—­the higher the poles the greater distance the message could be sent.  The success of Marconi’s system depended largely on his receiving apparatus, and it is on account of his use of some of the devices invented by other men that unthinking people have criticised him.  He adapted to the use of wireless telegraphy certain inventions that had heretofore been merely interesting scientific toys—­curious little instruments of no apparent practical value until his eye saw in them a contributory means to a great end.

Though Hertz caught the etheric waves on a wire hoop and saw the answering sparks jump across the unjoined ends, there was no way to record the flashes and so read the message.  The electric current of a wireless message was too weak to work a recording device, so Marconi made use of an ingenious little instrument invented by M. Branly, called a coherer, to hitch on, as it were, the stronger current of a local battery.  So the weak current of the ether waves, aided by the stronger current of the local circuit, worked the recorder and wrote the message down.  The coherer was a little tube of glass not as long as your finger, and smaller than a lead pencil, into each end of which was tightly fitted plugs of silver; the plugs met within a small fraction of an inch in the centre of the tube, and the very small space between the ends of the plugs was filled with silver and nickel dust so fine as to be almost as light as air.  Though a small instrument, and more delicate than a clinical thermometer, it loomed large in the working-out of wireless telegraphy.  One of the silver plugs of the coherer was connected to the receiving wire, while the other was connected to the earth (grounded).  To one plug of the coherer also was joined one pole of the local battery, while the other pole was in circuit with the other plug of the coherer through the recording instrument.  The fine dust-like silver and nickel particles in the coherer possessed the quality of high resistance, except when charged by the electric current of the ether waves; then the particles of metal clung together, cohered, and allowed of the passage of the ether waves’ current and the strong current of the local battery, which in turn actuated the Morse sounder and recorder.  The difficulty with this instrument was in the fact that the metal particles continued to cohere, unless shaken apart, after the ether waves’ current