Would I care to see the instruments in operation, to send a message, perhaps Of course I would care, and be grateful for the opportunity.
A scrap of conversational courtesy over a.cigarette, but it promised a most enjoyable morning, and although it pledged the writer, a constitutional late riser, to be up, dressed, and breakfasted by 9.45 of the clock, the engagement was willingly entered into, The quarter was just chiming from the Customs tower, as I stepped on to the doorstep tugging my second glove into place, and at the instant Capt. Grassi of the Italian Royal Navy, and now wireless telegraphic expert to the Chinese Government, on his motor glided up. Salutations briefly made, places were taken, and we were threading the early traffic of the Bund, bumping over the Garden, Bridge, and making Broadway musical with our warning horn At the Wayside corner, where the road widens and clears at the same time, a touch of the regulating lever sent the easy-going engine: bounding forward, and on the stroke of ten o'clock we were at the mouth of the Yangtsepoo creek. Punctriality. still reigned. A smart young Chinese naval officer stopped forward ant intimated that his boat awaited us; there was, only the momentary delay of collecting the boat's crew who.were stretching ibs ashore in defiance of, Western discipline, and we were being strongly pulled across river to the cruiser IMaishin lying on the other side, her polished brass gleaming in the sunlight.
After paying our respects. to, Capt. Hai andexperiencing his hospitality,.we moved directly to the small apartment, a step or, two only, away,, where the instruments 'The, app' surprisingly simple and.small.
A couple of.small dynamos.with a parking machine over them, and a keyboard for: tapping out thie message in accordance with. the Morse code constituted the dispatching appar tus,, Asixtoen-cell battery at the.side was described as filling the purpose of keeping constant the cnrrentof electricity, itself derived from the dynamos driven by the ship's ongines, alrea(ly. used for electric. lighting: It.was explained that the spark produced on.tapping.the keyboard. agitated, the air in.the same manner as a stone thrown, into a pool will agitate.the water, that, the circles; thus produced were, however, of constant force, and that they could be, sent,, travelling to a., distance which was only limited by the size of..the instrument and,; the. consequent.force of the spark explosion. The greater the distance, to-which it was.desired. to send a..meésage, the: greater: must be the distance between. the two poles..of the sparking machine and the stronger therefore the current of electricity to leap the tervening distatice, "It is the played by the high mast 'i and intercepting'the atmospheric waves caused by: the spark explosions th stitutes the discovery of Mr. Marconi and the other pioneers of wireless telegraphy.
'A message was dispatched to. the Captain of the "Italian cruiser Marco Polo who hes allowed the use of hi ship's "apparatus in connection with the "experimental installation on the Chinese cruisers. "Almost before the last' tap had ceased; "attention was attracted to a less audible tapping at the side, and simultaneously a tape machine began to disgorge the snswering message. The receiving machine is yet more simple in appearance than that for dispatch, and, including the automatic tape machine similar to that used for stock-exchange quotations in country where China ponies are not, occupies barely two square fect of space. The ype printed clearly and rapidly. Should ithappon that a message arrived in the absence of any operator in the telegraphing room, it would be delivered and found waiting the return of the assistant. The vending and receiving of messages inay indeed be undertaken by anyone acquairited with the Morse code, and without any knowledge of the scientific cause permitting the message itself to be tratismitted. Chinese operators are now being trained for this purpose.
Tnstallatio less telegraphy to be made successively on the three other Chinese cruisers now in port, and eventually, no doubt, all the larger vessels at least in the Chinese navy will be fitted with @ service which has done for the what the older telegraphy did for the lund half a century ago.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.