a message sent off by one station may be captured by some other station.  The fact that the phenomena of resonance are not utilised, further prevents the quantity of energy received by the receiver from being considerable, and hence the effects reaped are very weak, so that the system remains somewhat fitful and the communications are often disturbed by atmospheric phenomena.  Causes which render the air a momentary conductor, such as electrical discharges, ionisation, etc., moreover naturally prevent the waves from passing, the ether thus losing its elasticity.

Professor Ferdinand Braun of Strasburg has conceived the idea of employing a mixed system, in which the earth and the water, which, as we have seen, have often been utilised to conduct a current for transmitting a signal, will serve as a sort of guide to the waves themselves.  The now well-known theory of the propagation of waves guided by a conductor enables it to be foreseen that, according to their periods, these waves will penetrate more or less deeply into the natural medium, from which fact has been devised a method of separating them according to their frequency.  By applying this theory, M. Braun has carried out, first in the fortifications of Strasburg, and then between the island of Heligoland and the mainland, experiments which have given remarkable results.  We might mention also the researches, in a somewhat analogous order of ideas, by an English engineer, Mr Armstrong, by Dr Lee de Forest, and also by Professor Fessenden.

Having thus arrived at the end of this long journey, which has taken him from the first attempts down to the most recent experiments, the historian can yet set up no other claim but that of having written the commencement of a history which others must continue in the future.  Progress does not stop, and it is never permissible to say that an invention has reached its final form.

Should the historian desire to give a conclusion to his labour and answer the question the reader would doubtless not fail to put to him, “To whom, in short, should the invention of wireless telegraphy more particularly be attributed?” he should certainly first give the name of Hertz, the genius who discovered the waves, then that of Marconi, who was the first to transmit signals by the use of Hertzian undulations, and should add those of the scholars who, like Morse, Popoff, Sir W. Preece, Lodge, and, above all, Branly, have devised the arrangements necessary for their transmission.  But he might then recall what Voltaire wrote in the Philosophical Dictionary: 

“What!  We wish to know what was the exact theology of Thot, of Zerdust, of Sanchuniathon, of the first Brahmins, and we are ignorant of the inventor of the shuttle!  The first weaver, the first mason, the first smith, were no doubt great geniuses, but they were disregarded.  Why?  Because none of them invented a perfected art.  The one who hollowed out an oak to cross a river never made a galley; those who piled up rough stones with girders of wood did not plan the Pyramids.  Everything is made by degrees and the glory belongs to no one.”