What startling developments of wireless telegraphy lie still in the future we do not know.  Marconi has predicted that wireless messages will circle the globe.  “I believe,” he has said, “that in the near future a wireless message will be sent from New York completely around the world without relaying, and will be received by an instrument in the same office with the transmitter, in perhaps less time than Shakespeare’s forty minutes.”

Not long ago the United States battle-ship Wyoming, lying off Cape Henry on the Atlantic coast, communicated with the San Diego at Guaymas, on the Pacific coast of Mexico.  This distance, twenty-five hundred miles across land, shows that Marconi’s prediction may be realized in the not distant future.

XIX

SPEAKING ACROSS THE CONTINENT

    A New “Hello Boy” in Boston—­Why the Boy Sought the Job—­The Useful
    Things the Boy Found to Do—­Young Carty and the Multiple
    Switchboard—­Called to New York City—­He Quiets the Roaring
    Wires—­Carty Made Engineer-in-Chief—­Extending the Range of the
    Human Voice—­New York Talks to San Francisco Over a Wire.

It seemed to many that the wireless telegraph was to be the final word in the development of communication, but two striking achievements coming in 1915 proved this to be far from the case.  While one group of scientists had given themselves to experimentation with the Hertzian waves which led to wireless telegraphy, other scientists and engineers were busily engaged in bringing the telephone to a perfection which would enable it to accomplish even more striking feats.  These electrical pioneers did not work as individuals, but were grouped together as the engineering staff of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.  At their head was John J. Carty, and it was under his guiding genius that the great work was accomplished.  John Carty is the American son of Irish parents.  He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on April 14, 1861.  His father was a gun-maker and an expert mechanic of marked intelligence and ingenuity who numbered among his friends Howe, the creator of the sewing-machine.  As a boy John Carty displayed the liveliest interest in things electrical.  When the time came for him to go to school, physics was his favorite study.  He showed himself to be possessed of a keen mind and an infinite capacity for work.  To these advantages was added a good elementary education.  He was graduated from Cambridge Latin School, where he prepared for Harvard University.  Before he could enter the university his eyesight failed, and the doctor forbade continuance of study.  Many a boy would have been discouraged by this physical handicap which denied him complete scholastic preparation.  But this boy was not the kind that gives up.  He had been supplementing his school work in physics with experimentations upon his own behalf.  Let us let Mr. Carty tell in his own words how he next occupied himself.