Ever since Marconi announced that he had received telegraph signals from Cornwall, England, at St. John's, Newfoundland, there has been a growing doubt in many minds as to whether he had really accomplished the feat. Marconi has settled all those doubts now. On board the "Philadelphia," during the week of February 22d, a receiver took and printed on a tape messages from Cornwall, 1,551 miles away. Notice this statement. No telephone instrument was used; there was no human agency to "think" or "imagine," and perhaps err. At a prearranged hour a transmitter at Cornwall shot a message through the air; Marconi and the ship's officers and others on board the "Philadelphia" heard the tick, and, looking at the tape, saw the dots and dashes which you or I or anybody still can see. When a machine does a thing, we humans believe; so long as a man stands between, we doubt. Fully two miles of telegraph tape, covered with thousands of signals and messages, bear witness to this latest triumph. By way of voucher, the captain and chief officer of the "Philadelphia" signed and certified the messages and signals which they saw printed by the instruments, and the documents in the case thus presented include messages received up to 1,551.5 miles, and signals received up to 2,099 miles. All this happened on a ship which was steaming away from England at twenty knots an hour; and under conditions which permit no question as to the significance of the experiments.
"Can you read?" inquired Marconi of the writer of this article the day he arrived fresh from his triumph and full of enthusiasm. "Will they say now I was mistaken in Newfoundland?" and he pointed to a piece of tape, the full length of which was covered with the blue marks of a telegraphic inker. It bore the inscription, "Received on S.S. 'Philadelphia,' Lat. 42.1 N., Long. 47.23 W., distance 2,099 (two thousand and ninety-nine) statute miles from Poldhu. Capt. A. R. Mills."
McClure's Magazine, April, 1902, pages 525-527:
Bahamas SG1076