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The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

Wireless Telegraphy 27 through space the recipient can correct his own timepiece after making due allowance for his geo- graphical position east or west of Greenwich. Longi- tude is now determined and verified by the aid of wireless, whereas formerly it had to be carried out by chronometers, and was not only a prolonged but a tedious operation. To-day it can be ascertained within a matter of hours. Regular wireless services for the transmission of commercial and private business are maintained throughout the world, and such trans- mission is cheaper than cable communications. Re- cently it has been pressed into service in connection with the operation of railways in the United States. The trains carry a small cabin reserved for the operator and his instruments, and he can speak with, and receive orders from, various stations while making sixty miles or more per hour along the steel highway as easily as conversation through the ether can be carried on between stationary points. The latest development in connection with Mar- coni’s epoch-marking invention is in connection with talking through space—that is, telephoning through the air without wires. This phase of the development is described in the chapter devoted to the story of the telephone. But the most wonderful feature of the romance of etheric communication is that it has been brought to its present stage of high perfection and universal use within the short span of two decades. Twenty years ago Marconi was able to throw signals through space over a distance of miles; to-day, by means of the telegraphic code, he can fling messages through the air right round the earth, or approximately 25,000 miles.