A lightship anchored off the coast of England was fitted with the Marconi apparatus and served to warn several vessels of impending danger, and at last, after a collision in the dark and fog, saved the men who were aboard of her by sending a wireless message to the mainland for help.

From the very beginning Marconi had set a high standard for himself.  He worked for an end that should be both commercially practical and universal.  When he had spanned the Channel with his wireless messages, he immediately set to work to fling the ether waves farther and farther.  Even then the project of spanning the Atlantic was in his mind.

On the coast of Cornwall, near Penzance, England, Marconi erected a great station.  A forest of tall poles were set up, and from the wires strung from one to the other hung a whole group of wires which were in turn connected to the transmitting apparatus.  From a little distance the station looked for all the world like ships’ masts that had been taken out and ranged in a circle round the low buildings.  This was the station of Poldhu, from which Marconi planned to send vibrations in the ether that would reach clear across to St. Johns, Newfoundland, on the other side of the Atlantic—­more than two thousand miles away.  A power-driven dynamo took the place of the more feeble batteries at Poldhu, converters to increase the power displaced the induction coil, and many sending-wires, or antennae, were used instead of one.

On Signal Hill, at St. Johns, Newfoundland—­a bold bluff overlooking the sea—­a group of men worked for several days, first in the little stone house at the brink of the bluff, setting up some electric apparatus; and later, on the flat ground nearby, the same men were very busy flying a great kite and raising a balloon.  There was no doubt about the earnestness of these men:  they were not raising that kite for fun.  They worked with care and yet with an eagerness that no boy ever displays when setting his home-made or store flyer to the breeze.  They had hard luck:  time and time again the wind or the rain, or else the fog, baffled them, but a quiet young fellow with a determined, thoughtful face urged them on, tugged at the cord, or held the kite while the others ran with the line.  Whether Marconi stood to one side and directed or took hold with his men, there was no doubt who was master.  At last the kite was flying gallantly, high overhead in the blue.  From the sagging kite-string hung a wire that ran into the low stone house.

One cold December day in 1901, Guglielmo Marconi sat still in a room in the Government building at Signal Hill, St. Johns, Newfoundland, with a telephone receiver at his ear and his eye on the clock that ticked loudly nearby.  Overhead flew his kite bearing his receiving-wire.  It was 12:30 o’clock on the American side of the ocean, and Marconi had ordered his operator in far-off Poldhu, two thousand watery miles away, to begin signalling the letter “S”—­three