The Memorial to MarconiAuthor(s): Edward KellySource: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Jan., 1942), pp. 92-95Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/17482 .

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92 THE SCIENTIFIC AMONTHLY

sections of the association; it holds gen- eral sessions at which the president of the association aiid other distinlguished scholars deliver addresses of broad gen- eral interest; it provides opportunities for the organization of joint symposia by groups who have important interests in common-twenity-five such symuposia at the Dallas meeting; aiicl it publishes the most important symposia. It is diffieult to mueasure the importance of such coin-

tributions to scieinee, especially in timues of stress, but it is certain that they are forces of the kind that have revolution- ized the world. Marching arnmies have their triumphs ancd their defeats, largely o01 the physical plane, but ideas are lodged and- grow and rnature in the un- conquerable and irresistible depths of the mind.

F. R. MOULTON, Perntanemt Secretary

THE MEMORIAL TO MARCONI

A SMALL triangular park, lookiiig down the meridian of Washington toward the Exeeutive Mansion, is being coI1verted to an American national memorial to a maan who by birth-anld by burial-beloilged to another nation, but whose achievements in the field of science and contributionls to the progress of the human race made him a citizen of the world.

In granite ancd bronze, the memory alnd accomplishments of Guglielmo Mar- coni, inveiitor of wireless telegraphy-

THE NEW MEMORIAL TO MARCONI

the miediunm of conmmnuniicationi which reduced tinme to an inistanit, ei-eonopassed all space anid surmnounted the barriers of nmiouintaini ancd sea will be forever enishrinied. In this dark period of the worldc's history, it is encouraging to note that a ilationi befogged by rumnors of war anid reports of destructioin fincds pause to pay tribute to one who dedicated his labors to advance the standards of civilization.

The Marconii Memaorial will take the formu of a double pedestal of Stony- Creek granite, arising fronm a base of the samue muaterial. The lower of the two pedes- tals will support a bronize bust of the inventor. Behincd this pedestal and bust will arise a broader anid taller pedestal surmiounted by the bronize figure of a womuan carried on a half globe suspended in clouLds, through which ethereal waves are passing. The sculptor, Attilio Picei- rilli, has iiiterpreted th e work in the following words:

Againist the shaft of the moniument, on a base of classic sim-iplicity, rests the bust of Marcoii, as firmly planted as his famue. The head, mod- eled in its virile strenigth, stresses purposeful- ness in the line of the mouth, aind visioni in the far-seeing eyes under the great brow.

Symbolic of Marconii's contribution to science, the Wave speeding through ether covers the earth. There is the fleetness of liglhtninig in the backward sweep of hair and drapery. There is direction in the outthrust arm guided by the noble head which, as the figureheads of the ships dominated the sea, now commands the heavens. With Promethean gesture the uplif ted hancd reaches for still greater gifts to maii.

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THE: PROGRESS OF' SCIENCE 93

The memorial will be imposilng in its grace andl dignwity anid the beauty of its settin(g, rather thaii in its size. The pedestal holding the bust of the inventor will be only seven feet high and the bust three feet eight inches. The taller pedes- tal will be 13 feet 5 inches high, with the symbolic figure rising nine feet above.

The small park which provides the site for the mnemorial is located on the west side of 16th S-treet at Lamont Street, N. W., in Washington. The monument will be placed close to the north border of the park and will face the south. It will be approached by a eurved walk leading from the south point of the tri- angle, along th-e west hypotenuse and crossing in front of the memorial, where it will form a paved plaza, exiting toward 16th Street on the east. Benches will be spaced along the walk to face toward the memorial. They will be shaded by Anmerican elms and backed by small hedges of evergreen barberry. Across the walk and bordering the lawn area, a low hedge of evergreen privet will lead toward the monument. Flowering dogwood trees will line the hedge at studied intervals.

The memorial will be flanked on either side by low-spreading yews and Wash- illgto]1 thorns. Firethorns, dwarf yews and small-leaf holly will provide a low hedge behind the memorial. Japanese spurge will be used as grouLnd cover. The entire comnposition will be enframed by floweringo dogwoods. The landseap- ing treatmen-t has been design-ed to take advantage of the four existing nmature American elms which f orm a fine canopy along Lamont Street behind the mnemo- rial, and the existing silver maples which guard the 16th S)treet boundary.

The sculptor, Attilio Piccirilli, was born in Massa-Carrara, Italy, in 1866. He studied alt the Academia San- Luca in Rome before coming to the United States in 1889. Among his better-known works are the Maine Memorial in Central Park, New York; the MacDonough Me-

BUST OF MARCONI IN THE MEMORIAL

morial in New Orleans and the Fire- man 's Meim-iorial on Riverside Drive, New York. He is represented in the Fine Arts Academy, Buffalo, by Da-iing Fanl alid Head of B3oy. His other works inelude Apgar Memorial; A Soul; Flower of the Alps; Portrait of an Ar- tist; Mater Consolatrix; Pedimewnt, Frick House; Mater Amorosa ancd the Pariah of the Church of St. Marks-in-tlhe- Bouverie, New York.

The architect for the memorial is Joseph H. Freelander, New York. Joseph C. Gardnier, of Bethescla, Mary- land, is the landscape architect. The memorial is being erected under author- ity of Congress by the Marconi Memorial Foundation of New York. Officers of the foundation are Generoso Pope, presi- dent; S. Samuel Di Falco, secretary- treasurer; John J. Freschi, Armerincdo Portfolio and Ruigi Criscuolo, vice- presidents.

The man whose iniventive achieve- ments the memorial will commemorate was born in Bologna, Italy, on April 25, 1874, of an Italian father and an Irish

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94 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

STAR CLOUD IN MILKY WAY A FEW OF THE THOUSANDS OF MILLIONS OF STARS IN OUR OWN STELLAR SYSTEM. MILLIONS OF SIMILAR STELLAR SYSTEMS ARE KNOWN WHICH ARE SO DISTANT THAT MILLIONS OF YEARS ARE

REQUIRED FOR THEIR LIGHT TO COME TO US.

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THIE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

mnother. During and after his educa- tion at Bologna, Florenee and Leghorn, he was interested in physical and elec- trical science. In 1895, when he was 21, he became convinced that a system of telegraphy through space could be pro- vided by mneans of electromagnetic waves, the existence of which had been foreseen mathematically by Clerk Max- well il1 1864.

After experimenting at his father's estate in Bologna, young Marconi went to England, wlhere on June 2, 1896, he took out the first patent ever granted for wireless telegraphy based on the use of electric waves. That same year he dem-

onstrated his inventionl to government officials, and in March, 1898, he sent a message across the Eniglish ehanniel from England to France. Naval and military uses of his inventioni followed, and on December 12, 1901, Marconi, on his first attempt, succeeded in transmuitting and receiving signals across the Atlantic from Poldhu in Cornwall, Elngland, to St. John's, Newfoundland.

Marconi was awardecl the Nobel Prize for physics in 1909, the Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts, alnd, in the United States, the Fralnklill and the John Fritz Medals.

EDWARD KELLY

THE EVENING SKY

NOT often is the eveninig sky more beautifully sprinkled with planets and stars than during: these winter months. As soorL as the sun sets, and it now sets early, the most casual observer is almost startled by the white brilliance of Venus in the western sky. Toward the south red Mars stands out conspicuously from the stars, while in the east Jupiter rises and shines oiuly second to Venus, and above Jupiter cand a little to the right is ringed Saturn. These bodies are not stars but planets that, like the earth, revolve around the sun. The stars, other suns, are not lacking, for in the south-

I ,

east is Siri-us, the nmost brilliant star in the sky, and above it are Rigel and the glorious stars that make up the Belt and the Sword of Orion.

Although the planet Venus is appar- ently nmuch brighter thaii alny red star in the sky, it is actually much smaller than any of thenm and appears luminous only beeause it reflects some of the light it receives from the sun. It is a little world, somewhat snmaller than the earth and somewhat nearer the sun. Its year is about 225 of the earth's days in length, but the length of its day is uncertain because it is surrounded by a cloud-filled

0*0@0 JU, C/ 7 Z W%5,47Z/A?/qV

THTE S'UN A-ND PLANETS TO THE SAME RELATIVE SCALE

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