Notes

Abstract

THE first Press messages by wireless telegraphy were transmitted by the Marconi system across the Atlantic Ocean, between Ireland and Cape Breton, on October 17. Several congratulatory messages were exchanged between the two continents. The Governor-General of Canada dispatched a message from Ottawa congratulating the King “on the establishment of a fresh link between Canada and the Motherland,” to which His Majesty replied on the following day by the same method of communication:—“His Majesty the King to Earl Grey, London, October 18.—I thank you for your telegram. I am delighted that wireless Transatlantie telegraphy should unite the bonds between Canada and the Mother Country so closely.—EDWARD R.” The Irish station is situated on a headland facing the Atlantic, about, four, miles from Clifden, in Galway, and is the largest wireless installation in the United Kingdom. A number of tall masts, arranged in a line facing seawards, contain a network of wires on which messages are received and dispatched. The operators have a telephonic apparatus with a sensitive sounder attached to their ears, and it is their trained sense of hearing and distinguishing the Morse signals transmitted that enables them to detect the signals. It is stated that signals are sent and received simultaneously, and that a speed of about thirty words per minute has already been attained. Full particulars of the modifications in the apparatus and plant which have made the success of last week possible will doubtless be forthcoming in due course. Mr. Marconi and those at work with him are to be congratulated upon their triumph over practical difficulties, and men of science have reason for satisfaction in this remarkable development of means of communication by means of ether waves. The Marconi Company state that any delays in the transmission of messages by their system between North America and the United Kingdom are attributable entirely to delays on the land lines. The company claims that with a private wire from its station at Glace Bay to Montreal, and from the Irish station to London, the service between London and Montreal will immediately compare favourably with the cable service in point of speed.