Note 4 — THE WIRELESS TELEGRAPH

The value of wireless telegraphy in relation to disasters at sea was proved in a remarkable way yesterday morning. While the Channel was enveloped in a dense fog, which had lasted throughout the greater part of the night, the East Goodwin Lightship had a very narrow escape from sinking at her moorings by being run into by the steamship R. F. Matthews, 1,964 tons gross burden, of London, outward bound from the Thames. The East Goodwin Lightship is one of four such vessels marking the Goodwin Sands, and, curiously enough, it happens to be the one ship which has been fitted out with Signor Marconi's installation for wireless telegraphy. The vessel was moored about twelve miles to the northeast of the South Foreland Lighthouse (where there is another wireless-telegraphy installation), and she is about ten miles from the shore, being directly opposite Deal. The information regarding the collision was at once communicated by wireless telegraphy from the disabled lightship to the South Foreland Lighthouse, where Mr. Bullock, assistant to Signor Marconi, received the following message: “We have just been run into by the steamer R. F. Matthews of London. Steamship is standing by us. Our bows very badly damaged.” Mr. Bullock immediately forwarded this information to the Trinity House authorities at Ramsgate.—Times, April 29, 1899.