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Wireless Telegraphy 3 alacrity, and a day or two afterwards was immersed in a deep and prolonged conversation with the elec- trical authority. This heart-to-heart chat was pro- foundly fruitful, and the British engineer was so favourably impressed and interested that he turned over his laboratory to the Italian worker and urged him to continue his experiments with all the zeal he could command. The young Italian experimenter was Signor (now Commendatore) Guglielmo Marconi, while the inter- ested patron was Mr. (afterwards Sir) William H. Preece, chief electrical engineer of the telegraph system of the General Post Office. It was not long before the mystery surrounding the tin boxes and masts or poles in the grounds of the gentleman residing in Bologna was cleared up. They were “ capacities,” and they were connected by wires to primitive instru- ments which young Marconi had contrived with his own hands. Marconi explained to chief-engineer Preece that when he set the capacities about 6 feet above ground he could send signals through the air, and without wires, over a distance of 100 yards. When he elevated the tin box at the sending station to a height of 14 feet the signals could be received approximately 300 yards away, and so on. The point which the experimenter desired to emphasise was that the higher the mast and the position of the capacity above the ground, the greater the distance over which signals could be sent successfully through the air. In fact, he himself, with his crude facilities, had been able to maintain communication in this manner between two points a mile and a half apart.