oot in
diameter and ten feet long we sent magnetic waves both when the tube
was filled with air and when it was exhausted. Our means of measuring
the time required in both cases were quite inadequate--perhaps there was
no appreciable difference--but the records in the latter case, secured
upon a Morse register, were unmistakably more vigorous and audible.

At last our various results had reached a point where we felt justified
in extending the limits of our investigations. We had up to this time
only tried our messages between the two stations upon the plateau of Mt.
Cook. My father now proposed that I go to Christ Church, install a
sender (transmitter) and send messages to him at the observatory. I did
so and the experiment was convincing. The day before I was ready to
transmit a message I had attended an attractive church service--it was
toward the close of Lent in the year 1889--and as my father was entirely
unprepared for the account I proposed to give him of the function, I
thought its correct transmission would afford an indubitable proof of
our success. I wrote out the description. It was received by my father
with only ten imperfect interpretations in a list of 1,000 words.

From this time forward our plans for erecting a receiver in the
observatory were pushed to a completion. We had discovered the
necessity of elevation for the senders (transmitters) and receivers for
long distance work, and a tall mast, fifty feet in height, was put up at
the observatory, which--needlessly I think--was to serve as the
terrestrial station for the reception of those viewless waves which my
father thought might be constantly breaking unrecorded upon the
insensitive surfaces of our earth.

The eventful night came. It was August, 1890. Mars was then in
opposition. The evening had been extremely beautiful. Nature united in
her mood the most transporting contradictions of temperament. It was
August and the day had been marked by changes of almost tropical
severity, although, as we were south of the equator (the latitude of
Christ Church is S. 44 degrees) August was, with us, mid-winter. A
thunderstorm had broken upon us in the morning, itself an unusual
meteorological phenomenon, and the downpour of black rain, shutting off
the views and enclosing us in a torrential embrace of floods, had lasted
an hour when it passed away, and the Sun re-illumined the wide
glistening scene. The line of foam from the breakers along the remote
sho