The Mentor, October, 1920, page 38:
THE VOICE AROUND THE WORLD
THE wonders of wireless multiply so fast that the only way to keep up with them is to predict astounding miracles for tomorrow. When tomorrow comes, we find the miracles wrought--and what we wrote today as a prophecy becomes an item of news. Last July, Nellie Melba, of opera fame, gave a concert by wireless to an audience spread over the greater part of Europe--and the incident was a seven-day wonder. That achievement, sensational as it was, has been eclipsed several times since. Madame Melba sang into the Marconi instrument at Chelmsford, England, and her songs were picked up by amateurs with wireless apparatus 700 and 800 miles away--in capitals so widely separated as Paris, Rome, Warsaw, Madrid, Berlin, Stockholm, Christiania. The concert began at quarter past seven, and it was opened by a beautiful long trill by Madame Melba which served notice to the listening world of Europe that the entertainment was on. Then followed "Home, Sweet Home" and several songs of Puccini's.
The concert was declared a great success all over the continent, and it was enjoyed by everyone present.
The incident made good newspaper reading, but it created no stir in scientific circles. Like incidents had occurred at various times, and in various places. A short time after there was a demonstration in wireless telephone transmission from Chelmsford to Denmark which was picked up readily by the experimental station at Signal Hall, St. John's, Newfoundland. A short concert by the Danish singer, Melchior, was distinctly heard at St. John's--as well as the conversation that followed between Denmark and Chelmsford. Now St. John's and Chelmsford are 2,673 miles apart, so this is nearly four times better than the Melba incident.
Beside the Melba picture we show here the great wireless wonder-worker, Lee De Forest, talking at ease over a space of a thousand miles. We may regard him as addressing the world--for that is now possible. A few days after we had written the foregoing words, the news was printed that a wireless message had been sent from the new Lafayette station at Bordeaux, France, that had gone "round the world." As a matter of fact, the new station had a sending power of only half the distance, but the message went east as well as west, and, so, met itself half way around the earth. The "voice around the world" will soon be heard. Puck in "Mid-Summer Night's Dream" flashes away into space with the cry, "I'll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes." Some day soon, we can, like Mr. De Forest, stand at a wireless telephone instrument, as pictured here, out-strip Puck, and leave him far behind in circling the earth. In that day one may cast his words upon the ether and have them return to him around the world.--A. A. Hopkins