MEMS ABOUT MARCONI.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 215, 6 October 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

MEMS ABOUT MARCONI.

THIS GREAT INVENTOR HAS ONLY ONE EYE.

Signor Marconi, the wireless wizard —who recently invented a simple apparatus to be worked from the bridge of a ship which will make collision at sea jn darkness or fog a practical impossibility—just missed losing his life h mself at sea last year. He was in America waiting for the declaration of war by Italy upon Austria before setting sail for his native country to organise the system of " wireless" there. It was only because tk's declaration didn't come as soon as it was expected that he didn't cross the Atlantic in the ill-fated Lusitania, as he had originally intended —a great piece of good fortune not only for lumseJf but for the Allies as well.

Only when the history of the war comes to be wrtten will some idea of his work for the Cause be formed Thanks to his .efforts the wireless system wh'Vh links up the fighting force* on land and sea with the Governments of the Quadruple Alliance is unrivalled. Every member of tlie Marconi Com. pany lias been enrolled in the "Secret Service," so important are the messages they have to deal with from the different theatres of war every day.

HE ADMIRED KING EDWARD. Marconi is continually experimenting to devise wireless and other improvements, and in connection with his work he spends a great part of his t : nte these days under the sea in submarines, and in airships and aeroplanes in the air. He confesses to an erie feeling when diving in a submarin. "I always wonder," he remarked to a friend, "if any. thing is going to go wrong with tho works!" Marconi was a great admirer of the late. King Edward, and takes special delight in the fact that his first notable success in the practical application of "wireless" —when ho succeeded in establishing communication between the Lizard and St. Catherine's, Isle of Wight, a distance of two hundred miles —was achieved in 1901, on the very day the late king came to the throne. Those who knew him say it .''is hard to realise that the slim, young-looking man with the clean-cut features is one of the greatest scientists and inventors of the present day ; and, indeed, m view of It's age, his achiievom.onts barf little short of marvellous, for lie is onh' fortv-two.

Four years ago he had the misfortune to lose his right eye as the result of a motor accent, but this misfortune ho has surniount<xl cheerily. Tha doctors who attended him said thev never had such a cheerful patient, and the loss of hrs eye has not proved much of a handicap to his work.