BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME EROM THE
SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND
THE GIFT OF
Henrg HI. Sage
1891
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Cornell University Library
The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text.
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 924031 221 249
A HISTORY
OF
ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHY,
TO THE YEAR 1837.
A HISTORY
OF
ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHY,
TO THE YEAR 1837.
CHIEFLY COMPILED FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES, AND HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS.
BY
J. J. FAHIE,
MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF TELEGKAPH-ENGINEERS AND ELECTRICIANS, LONDON; AND OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF ELECTRICIANS, PARIS.
' Their line is gone out through all the earth. And their words to the end of the world."
Psalms xix. 4.
LONDON: E. & F. N. SPON, 16, CHARING CROSS.
NEW YORK: 35, MURRAY STREET.
1884.
<S
All rights reserved.
DeuicateU
TO
LATIMER CLARK, ESQUIRE,
M.I.C.E., F.R.G.S., F.M.S,, PAST PRES. S.T.E. AND E.,
IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MANY KINDNESSES, BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND,
THE AUTHOR.
London, February 1884,
PREFACE.
Plutarch, in the opening sentences of his Life of Demosthenes, says : — " Whosoever shall design to write a history, consisting of materials which must be gathered from observation, and the reading of authors not easy to be had nor writ in his own native language, but many of them foreign and dispersed in other hands : for him it is in the first place and above all things most necessary to reside in some city of good note and fame, addicted to the liberal arts, and populous, where he may have plenty of all sorts of books, and, upon inquiry, may hear and inform himself of such parti- culars as, having escaped the pens of writers, are yet faithfully preserved in the memories of men ; lest otherwise he publish a work deficient in many things, and those such as are necessary to its perfection."
Had we seen this passage a few years ago, the following pages had, probably, never been written, and there would be no need for this preface. The work was begun and brought to a very forward state, not in some city of good note and fame, where plenty of books were to be had, but in what has been rightly
viii Preface.
called " the confines of the earth— the hot regions of Persia," and under circumstances which, we think, will bear relating.
In our youthful days we contracted two habits, which have been ever since the bane or the solace (we hardly know which to call them) of our existence, viz., a taste for writing, and a taste for scraps. The Cacoethes Scribendi first attacked us, and we can recall letters in the local papers on various topics of local interest, all of which were written early in our teens. When about sixteen years of age we commenced a history of the old castles and churches which abound (in ruins) in and about our native place, the said history being intended to serve also as a guide for tourists who were constantly visiting the neighbourhood. With great industry we got together, in time, some two hundred pages (foolscap) of writing ; but the work was never completed. For years we hawked the MS. about, latterly never looking at it, having come to regard it as a standing reproach for time and money misspent ; and at last, in a fit of remorse, we gave the papers to the flames in 1875.
Soon after joining the telegraph service, in 1865, our archaeological bent took another turn, and we now began to collect books and scraps on electricity, magnetism, and their applications — particularly to telegraphy, and with the same industrious ardour as before. In December 1867, we entered the Persian Gulf Telegraph Department under the Government of
Preface. ix
India, where, having a good deal of spare time on our hands, we indulged our habits to the full. In 1871, having amassed a large number of notes, scraps, &c., on submarine telegraphy, we began a work on the history and working of the Persian Gulf cables, of which we had then had over three years' practical experience.
Gradually this developed itself into an ambitious treatise, which we styled " Submarine Telegraphs, their Construction, Submersion, and Maintenance, including their Testing and Practical Working." Of this some three hundred pages (foolscap) are now lying " submerged " in the depths of our trunk, to be, perhaps, " recovered " at some future day — if, haply, they do not share the fate of our History of Ruins !
Unfortunately for us, at least from a book-selling point of view, our old taste for archaeology, after lying dormant for years, reasserted itself, and, about six years ago, we found ourselves in the design of writing a history of telegraphy from the time of Adam down to our own ! For this we had a pile of notes and paper cuttings — the accumulation of a dozen years, but few books (books are heavy and awkward baggage for one of our necessarily semi-nomadic life). How- ever, with our materials we built up a tolerably fleshy skeleton (if we may so speak), which, on our arrival in England at the close of 1882, after nearly fifteen years' absence, we showed to some friends.
They advised us to fill up the gaps and bring out
X Preface.
our book immediately. The first was easy of accom* plishment, with the use of the splendid technical libraries of Mr. Latimer Clark and of the Society of Telegraph-Engineers and Electricians, and with an occasional reference to the British Museum ; but to find a publisher, that was not so easy. Publishers, now as always, fight shy of Dryasdust, and the two or three whom we tried asked us to bring them something new, for, owing to the machinations of us, Electrical Engineers, the world was going at lightning speed, and had no time to look back.
Ultimately we paid a visit to the Editor of The Electrician, told him of our discomfiture, showed him our MSS., and repeated an offer that we had made him years before, from Persia, but which he then declined, viz., to publish our articles from week to week in his paper. The Editor did not take long to decide ; he would only, however, accept the electrical portion, the non-electric part which deals with fire-, flag-, and semaphore- signalling, acoustic, pneumatic, and hy- draulic telegraphs, &c., &c., being, he said, unsuited for his journal. On the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread, we concluded arrangements there and then, and parted with our new-found friend with feelings which time has but intensified.
The present volume is a collection, with very few alterations, of the articles which have regularly ap- peared in The Electrician for the last twelve months. Of these alterations the only ones worth mentioning
Preface. xi
will be found in our chapters on Mr. Edward Davy ; we have made our account of his electro-chemical re- cording telegraph a little fuller, and have added some new matter lately acquired (i) from recent letters of Mr. Davy himself, (2) from an examination of the private papers of the late Sir William FothergiM Cooke — a privilege for which we are indebted to our kind friend, Mr. Latimer Clark, and (3) from Mr. W. H. Thornthwaite, of London, an old pupil of Edward Davy, whose very interesting reminiscences, we feel sure, will be scanned with pleasure by all our readers.
Now as to the plan of the work. We have divided the history of electricity into three parts, (i) static, or frictional, electricity, (2) dynamic, or galvanic, electri- city, and (3) electro-magnetism and magneto-electricity. We have brought our account of each part down to the year 1837, confining ourselves to a notice of such facts and principles only as are employed in the various telegraphic proposals that follow. These, in their turn, are divided into three classes, electrical, galvanic (chemical), and electro-magnetic ; and each class, treated chronologically, follows naturally the corresponding part of the history of electricity. The whole is preceded by a full account of what we have called z. foreshadowing of the electric telegraph, and is followed by an appendix, containing (A) a clear and correct statement of Professor Joseph Henry's little- known connection with electric telegraphy, which is
xii Preface.
too important to be omitted, but for which we could not conveniently find room in the body of the work, and (B) a few pages supplementary of our chapters on Edward Davy.
In limiting ourselves to the year 1837, we have done so advisedly, for, to attempt even the barest outline of what has been accomplished since then would occupy volumes. Our object has been, as it were, to make a special survey of a river from its rise away in some tiny spring to its mouth in the mighty ocean, marking down, as we came along, those of the tributary streams and such other circumstances as specially interested us. Arrived at the mouth, the traveller who wishes for further exploration has only to chose his pilot ; for, fortunately, there is no lack of these. We have Highton, Lardner, Sabine, and CuUey in England ; Shaffner, Prescott, and Reid in America ; Moigno, Blavier, and du Moncel in France ; Schellen, and Zetzsche in Germany ; Saavedra in Spain, and many others in various parts of the world whose names need not be specially mentioned.
As we have in the body of the work given full refer- ences for every important statement, it will not be necessary to acknowledge here the sources of our in- formation ; indeed it would be simply impossible to do so within the limits of a preface which we feel is already too long. Like Moliere, we have taken our materials wherever we could find them, and it is no exaggeration to say that in pursuit of our subject we
Preface. xiii
have laid many hundreds of volumes under tribute ; some have given us clues, some have been mines of wealth, others have yielded nothing at all, while, what was worse, a goodly number were of the ignis fatuus kind — false accounts, false dates, false refer- ences, false everything — which worried us consider- ably, and over which we lost much precious time.
We gladly, however, take this opportunity of thank- ing Messrs. Ispolatoff (Russia), D'Amico (Italy), Aylmer (France), Sommerring (Germany), and Collette (Holland), for their assistance, of which, as they will see, we have made good use in the text. To our friend, Mr. Latimer Clark, our debt is too heavy for liquidation and must remain. He has not only given us the free use of his magnificent library, but has aided and encouraged us with his advice and sympathy, and, in the most generous manner, has placed at our disposal all his private notes. These, we need hardly say, have been of great use to us, and would have been of greater still had we seen them at an earlier stage of our researches.
As we have to return almost immediately to " the confines of the earth," the preparation of the index has been kindly undertaken by our friend, Mr. A. J. Frost, Librarian of the Society of Telegraph-Engineers and Electricians, whose name will be a sufficient guarantee for the accuracy and completeness of the work. In tendering him our cordial thanks for this assistance, we have much pleasure in recording our
XIV Preface.
appreciation of the zeal, ability, and unvarying courtesy with which he performs the duties of his office. His bibliographical knowledge is great and special, and has at all times been freely placed at our disposal.
Our book, we hope, will give the coup de grdce to many popular errors. Thus, we show that Watson, Franklin, Cavendish, and Volta did not suggest elec- tric telegraphs (pp. 60, 66, and 82) ; that Galvani was not the first to observe the fundamental phenomenon of what we now C2.\\ galvanism (pp. 17S-9) > that his experiments in this field were not suggested by a preparation of frog-broth (pp. 180-3) ; that not Daniel! but Dobereiner and Becquerel first employed two-fluid cells with membranous or porous partitions (p. 215) ; that not Sommerring but Salvd. first proposed a gal- vanic (chemical) telegraph (p. 220) ; that not Schilling but Salvi first suggested a submarine cable (p. 105) ; that Romagnosi did not discover electro-magnetism (p. 257) ; that not Ritter but Gautherot first described the secondary battery (p. 267) ; that not Gumming nor Nobili but Ampere first invented the astatic needle (p. 280) ; that not Seebeck but Dessaignes first dis- covered thermo-electricity (p. 297) ; that not Thomson but Gauss and Weber first constructed the mirror galvanometer (p. 319); that the use of the earth circuit in telegraphy was clearly and intelligently suggested by an Englishman long before Steinheil made his accidental discovery of it (p. 345) ; and that not Cooke and Wheatstone, nor Morse, but
Preface. xv
Henry in America and Edward Davy in England first applied the principle of the relay — a principle of the utmost importance in telegraphy (pp. 359, 511, and 5 IS).
There may be some amongst our readers who will not thank us for upsetting their belief on these and many other points of lesser importance, and who may even call us bad names, as did Professor Leslie on a former occasion, and CL propos of somebody's quoting Swammerdam's and Sulzer's experiments (pp. 175 and 178) as suggestive of galvanism. Leslie says : — " Such facts are curious and deserve attention, but every honourable mind must pity or scorn that invi- dious spirit with which some unhappy jackals hunt after imperfect and neglected anticipations with a view of detracting from the merit of full discovery" (JEncy. Brit, 8th edition, vol. i. p. 739). For our part we can honestly say that in drawing up our history we have not been influenced by any such views ; our sole object has been to tell the truth, the whole truth, to
" nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice."
It is possible, however, that with the best intentions we may, either by omission or commission, be guilty of some unfairness ; and if our readers will only show us wherein we have transgressed, we will be ready to make the amende if they will kindly afford us an opportunity — in a second edition.
xvi Preface.
We began our preface with an apology, we will end it with an appeal. We borrowed the one from Plutarch, Newton shall supply the other. At the close of the preface to his immortal Principia he says : — " I earnestly entreat that all may be read with candour, and that my labours may be examined not so much with a view to censure as to supply their defects."
The Author.
London, February 1884.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Foreshadowing of the Electric Telegraph .. i
CHAPTER II.
Static, or Frictional, Electricity — History in Relation to Telegraphy 26
CHAPTER III.
Telegraphs based on Static, or Frictional, Electricity 68
' CHAPTER IV.
Telegraphs based on Static, or Frictional, Electricity {continued) tog
CHAPTER V.
Telegraphs based on Static, or Frictional, Electricity {continued) 146
CHAPTER VI.
Dynamic Electricity — History in Relation to
Telegraphy 169
b
xviii Contents.
CHAPTER VII.
PAGE
Dynamic Electricity— History in Relation to
T^LEGRAFHY (coniinued) i86
CHAPTER VIII.
Telegraphs (Chemical) based on Dynamic Elec- tricity 220
CHAPTER IX.
Electro-Magnetism and Magneto-Electricity — History in Relation to Telegraphy 250
CHAPTER X.
Electro-Magnetism and Magneto-Electricity — History in Relation to Telegraphy {continued) 275
CHAPTER XI.
Telegraphs based on Electro-Magnetism and Magneto-Electricity 302
CHAPTER XII.
Telegraphs based on Electro-Magnetism and Magneto-Electricity {continued) 326
CHAPTER XIII.
Edward Davy and the Electric Telegraph, 1836-1839 345
Contents. xix
CHAPTER XIV.
PAGE
Edward Davy and the Electric Telegraph,
1836-1839 {continued) 379
CHAPTER XV.
Edward Davy and the Electric Telegraph,
1836-1839 {continued) 414
CHAPTER XVI.
Telegraphs based on Electro-Magnetism and Magneto-Electricity (c«>;2/'z«««<^ 448
CHAPTER XVII.
Telegraphs based on Electro-Magnetism and Magneto-Electricity ((r(7«/z««<«<^ 477
Appendix A..— Re Professor Joseph Henry .. .. 495
Appendix 'B.—Re Mr. Edward Davy 516
Bibliography 531
Index 537
HISTORY
OF
ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHY
TO THE YEAR 1837.
CHAPTER I.
FORESHADOWING OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.
" Whatever draws me on, Or sympathy, or some connatural force. Powerful at greatest distance to unite, With secret amity, things of like kind, By secretest conveyance."
Milton, Paradise Lost, jl. 246. 1667.
Amongst the many flights of imagination, by which genius has often anticipated the achievements of her more deliberate and cautious sister, earth-walking reason, none, perhaps, is more striking than the story of the sympathetic needles, which was so prevalent in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and which so beautifully foreshadowed the invention of the electric telegraph.* This romantic tale had
* " In the dream of the Elector Frederick of Saxony, in 1517, the curious reader may like to discern another dim glimmering, a more shadowy foreshadowing, of the electric telegraph, whose hosts of iron
B
2 A History of Electric Telegraphy
reference to a sort of magnetic telegraph, based on the sympathy which was supposed to exist between needles that had been touched by the same magnet, or loadstone, whereby an intercourse could be main- tained between distant friends, since every movement imparted to one needle would immediately induce, by sympathy, similar movements in the other. As a history of telegraphy would be manifestly incom- plete without a reference to this fabulous contrivance, we propose to deal with it at some length in the present chapter.
For the first suggestions of the sympathetic needle telegraph we must go back a very long way, probably to the date of the discovery of the magnet's attraction for iron. At any rate, we believe that we have found traces of it in the working of the oracles of pagan Greece and Rome. Thus, we read in Maimbourg's Histoire de VArianisme (Paris, 1686)* ; —
and copper 'pens' reach to-day the farthest ends of the earth. In this strange dream Martin Luther appeared writing upon the door of the Palace Chapel at Wittemburg. The pen with which he wrote seemed so long that its feather end reached to Rome, and ran full tilt against the Pope's tiara, which his holiness was at the moment wearing. On seeing the danger, the cardinals and princes of the State ran up to support the tottering crown, and, one after another, tried to break the pen, but tried in vain. It crackled, as if made of iron, and could not be broken. While all were wondering at its strength a loud cry arose, and from the monk's long pen issued a host of others.."— Electricity and the Electric Telegraph, by Dr. George Wilson, London, 1852, p. 59 ; or D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, chap. iv. book iii. • English translation of 1728, by the Rev. W. Webster, chap. vi.
to the Year 1837. 3
"Whilst Valens [the Roman Emperor] was at Antioch in his third consulship, in the year 370, several pagans of distinction, with the philosophers who were in so great reputation under Julian, not being able to bear that the empire should continue in the hands of the Christians, consulted privately the demons, by the means of conjurations, in order to know the destiny of the emperor, and who should be his successor, persuading themselves that the oracle would name a person who should restore the worship of the gods. For this purpose they made a three- footed stool of laurel in imitation of the tripos at Delphos, upon which having laid a basin of divers metals they placed the twenty-four letters of the alphabet round it ; then one of these philosophers, who was a magician, being wrapped up in a large mantle, and his head covered, holding in one hand vervain, and in the other a ring, which hung at the end of a small thread, pronounced some execrable conjurations in order to invoke the devils ; at which the three- footed stool turning round, and the ring moving of itself, and turning from one side to the other over the letters, it caused them to fall upon the table, and place themselves near each other, whilst the persons who were present set down the like letters in their table- books, till their answer was delivered in heroic verse, which foretold them that their criminal inquiry would cost them their lives, and that the Furies were waiting for the emperor at Mimas, where he was to die of a
B 2
4 A History of Electric Telegraphy
horrid kind of death [he was subsequently burnt alive by the Goths] ; after which the enchanted ring turning about again over the letters, in order to express the name of him who should succeed the emperor, formed first of all these three characters, TH E O ; then having added a D to form THEOD the ring stopped, and was not seen to move any more ; at which one of the assistants cried out in a transport of joy, ' We must not doubt any longer of it ; Theodorus is the person whom the gods appoint for our emperor.' "
If, as it must be admitted, the modus operandi is not here very clear, we can still carry back our subject to the same early date, in citing an experiment on mag- netic attractions which was certainly popular in the days of St. Augustine, 354-430.
In his De Civitate Dei, which was written about 413, he tells us that, being one day on a visit to a bishop named Severus, he saw him take a magnetic stone and hold it under a silver plate, on which he had thrown a piece of iron, which followed exactly all the movements of the hand in which the loadstone was held. He adds that, at the time of his writing, he had under his eyes a vessel filled with water, placed on a table six inches thick, and containing a needle floating on cork, which he could move from side to side accord- ing to the movements of a magnetic stone held under the table.*
Leonardus (Camillus), in his Speculum Lapidum, * Basileae, 1522, pp. 718-19.
to the Year 1837. 5
&c., 1 502, verho MAGNES, refers to this experiment as one familiar to mariners, and Blasius de Vigenere, in his annotations of Livy, says that a letter might be read through a stone wall three feet thick, by guiding, by means of a loadstone or magnet, the needle of a compass over the letters of the alphabet written in the circumference.*
From such experiments as these the sympathetic telegraph was but a step, involving only the supposi- tion that the same effects might be possible at a greater distance, but wh^n, or by whom, this step was first taken it is now difficult to say. It has been traced back to Baptista Porta, the celebrated Neapo- litan philosopher, and in all probability originated with him ; for in the same book in which he announces the conceit he describes the above experiment of St. Augustine, and other " wonders of the magnet " ; adding that the impostors of his time abused by these means the credulity of the people, by arranging around a basin of water, on which a magnet floated, certain words to serve as answers to the questions which superstitious persons might put to them on the future.t
* Les Cinq Premiers Livres de Tite Live, Paris, 1576, vol. i. col. 1316.
t While it is generally admitted that magnetism has conferred incal- culable benefits on mankind (witness only the mariner's compass), we have never yet seen it stated that it has at the same time contributed more to our bamboozlement than any other, we might almost say all, of the physical sciences. With the charlatans in all ages and nations, its mysterious powers have ever been fruitful sources of imposture, some- times harmless, sometimes not. Thus, from the iron crook of the
6 A History of Electric Telegraphy
He then concludes the 2ist chapter with the following words, which, so far as yet discovered, contain the first clear enunciation of the sympathetic needle telegraph : — " Lastly, owing to the convenience afforded by the magnet, persons can converse together through long distances."* In the edition of 1589 he is even more explicit, and says in the preface to the seventh book : "I do not fear that with a long absent friend, even though he be confined by prison walls, we can com- municate what we wish by means of two compass needles circumscribed with an alphabet."
The next person who mentions this curious notion was Daniel Schwenter, who wrote under the assumed name of Johannes Hercules de Sunde. In his Stega- nologia et Steganographia, published at Nurnberg in 1600, he says, p. 127: — "Inasmuch as this is a wonderful secret I have hitherto hesitated about divulging it, and for this reason disguised my remarks in the first edition of my book so as only to be under-
Greek shepherd Magnes, and the magnetic mountains of the geo- grapher Ptolemy, to the magnetic trains of early railway enthusiasts • from the magnetically protected coffin of Confucius to the magnetically suspended one of Mahomed ; from the magnetic powders and potions of the ancients, and the metal discs, rods, and unguents of the old magnetisers, to the magnetic belts of the new — the modem panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to ; from the magnetic telegraphs of the sixteenth century to the Gary and Hosmer perpetual motors of the nineteenth, et hoc genus omne ; all these impostures are, or were, based entirely on the (supposed) force of magnetic attraction, to which must be added an unconscionable amount of ignorance or credulity. * Magice Naiuralis, p. 88, 'Naples, 1558.
to the Year 1837. 7
stood by learned chemists and physicians. I will now, however, communicate it for the benefit of the lovers of science generally." He then goes on to describe, in true cabalistic fashion, the preparation of
Fig. I.
De Simde's dial as given in Schott's Schola Steganographica.
the two compasses, the needles of which were to be made diamond-shaped from the same piece of steel and magnetised by the same magnet, or rather, magnets, for there were four : i, Almagrito ; 2, Theamedes ; 3, Almaslargont ; 4, Calamitro ; which
8 A History of Electric Telegraphy
imparted south, north, east, and west-turning pro- perties respectively to the needles. The cotiipass- cards were divided off into compartments, each con- taining four letters of the alphabet, and each letter was indicated by the needle pointing, from one to four times, to the division in which it stood. Thus, the letter C would be indicated by three movements of the needle to the first division of the card. The needles were actuated by bar magnets, or chadids, and attention was called by the ringing of a tiny bell, which was so placed in the way of the needle that at each deflection of the latter it was struck, and so continued to ring until removed by the correspondent.
The next and most widely known relation of the story occurs in the Prolusiones Academicce* of Famianus Strada, a learned Italian Jesuit, first published at Rome in. 1617, and often reprinted since. Although the idea did not originate with Strada (for he seems to attribute it to Cardinal Bembo, who died about 1547), he was certainly, as Sir Thomas Browne quaintly says, "The ceolus that blew it about," for his Prolusiones had long been a favourite classic, while the passage referring to the loadstone has, if we may say so, been con- tinually going the rounds of the newspapers. It is quoted more or less fully in many authors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, famous
* Lib. ii., prol. 6.
to the Year 1837. 9
amongst whom are Hakewill,* Addison,t Akenside,J and " Misographos." §
The references to it in the present century are simply too numerous to mention. The following is the latest English version, which, with the original Latin, appeared in the Telegraphic Journal, for November 15, 1875 : —
"There is a wonderful kind of magnetic stone to which if you bring in contact several bodies of iron or dial-pins, from thence they will not only derive a force and motion by which they will always try to turn themselves to the bear which shines near the pole, but, also, by a strange method and fashion between each other, as many dial-pins as have touched that stone, you will see them all agree in the same position and motion, so that if, by chance, one of these, be observed at Rome, another, although it may be removed a long way off, turns itself in the same direction by a secret law of its nature. Therefore try the experiment, if you desire a friend who is at a distance to know any- thing to whom no letter could get, take a flat smooth disc, describe round the outside edges of the disc stops, and the first letters of the alphabet, in the order in which boys learn them, and place in the centre, lying horizontally, a dial-pin that has touched the magnet,
* An Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World, 1630.
t Spectator, No. 241, 171 1, and Guardian, No. 119, 1713.
% The Pleasures of Imagination, 1744.
§ The Student; or, the Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany, 1750.
10 A History of Electric Telegraphy
so that, turned easily from thence, it can touch each separate letter that you desire,
"After the pattern of this one, construct another disc, described with a similar margin, and furnished with a pointer of iron — of iron that has received a motion from the same magnet. Let your frierid about to depart carry this disc with him, and let it be agreed beforehand at what time, or on what days, he shall observe whether the dial-pin trembles, or what it marks with the indicator. These things being thus arranged, if you desire to address your friend secretly, whom a part of the earth separates far from you, bring your hand to the disc, take hold of the movable iron, here you observe the letters arranged round the whole margin, with stops of which there is need for words, hither direct the iron, and touch with the point the separate letters, now this one, and now the other, whilst, by turning the iron round again and again throughout these, you may distinctly express all the sentiments of your mind.
" Strange, but true ! the friend who is far distant sees the movable iron tremble without the touch of any one, and to traverse, now in one, now in another direction ; he stands attentive, and observes the lead- ing of the iron, and follows, by collecting the letters from each direction, with which, being formed into words, he perceives what may be intended, and learns from the iron as his interpreter. Moreover, when he sees the dial-pin stop, he, in his turn, if he thinks
to the Year 1837. 11
of any things to answer, in the same manner by the letters being touched separately writes back to hiS' friend.
" Oh, I wish this mode of writing may become in use, a letter would travel safer and quicker, fearing no plots of robbers and retarding rivers. The prince, with his own hands, might despatch business for him- self. We, the race of scribes, escaped from an inky sea, would dedicate the pen to the Shores of Magnet."
The Starry Galileo had his say on the same subject, and, as we may expect, said it well : " You remind me," says he, " of one who offered to sell me a secret art, by which, through the attraction of a certain mag- netic needle, it would be possible to converse across a space of two or three thousand miles. And I said to him that I would willingly become the purchaser, pro- vided only that I might first make a trial of the art, and that it would be sufficient for the purpose if I were to place myself in one corner of the room and he in the other. He replied that, in so short a distance the action would be scarcely discernible ; whereupon I dis- missed the fellow, saying that it was not convenient for me just then to travel into Egypt, or Muscovy, for the purpose of trying the experiment, but that if he chose to go there himself, I would remain in Venice and attend to the rest."*
* Dialogus de Systemate Mundi, 1632, p. 88. It is curious that Kepler appears to have believed in the efficacy of the sympathetic tele- graph. See Fournier's Le Vieux-Neuf, Paris, 1857, vol. i. p. 200.
12 A History of Electric Telegraphy
Cardinal Richelieu's system of espionage was so perfect that he was regarded (and feared) by his con- temporaries as a dabbler in " diabolical magic." He was supposed to have possessed either a magic mirror, in which he could see all that went on in the world, or the equally magic magnetic telegraph. A propos of this, we find the following passage in the Letters writ by a Turkish Spy, a work which has been attributed by the elder Disraeli to John Paul Marana : — " This Cardinal said, on another time, that he kept a great many courtiers, yet he coiild well enough spare them ; that he knew what passed in remote places as soon as what was done near him. He once affirmed he knew in less than two hours that the King of England had
signed the warrant for the execution of— . If
this particular be true, this minister must be more than a man. Those who are his most devoted creatures affirm he has in a private place in his closet a certain mathematical figure, in the circumference of which are written all the letters of the alphabet, armed with a dart, which marks the letters, which are also marked by their correspondents ; and it appears that this dart ripens by the sympathy of a stone, which those who give and receive his advice keep always at hand, which hath been separated from another which the Cardinal has always by him ; and it is affirmed that with such an instrument he gives and receives immediately advices."*
The learned physician. Sir Thomas Browne, has * Thirteenth letter, dated Paris 1639, vol. i.
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some cautiously worded sentences on the mythical telegraph, which are worth quoting. " There is," he says, " another conceit of better notice, and whispered thorow the world with some attention ; credulous and vulgar auditors readily believing it, and more judicious and distinctive heads not altogether rejecting it. The conceit is excellent, and, if the effect would follow somewhat divine ; whereby we might communicate like spirits, and confer on earth with Menippus in the moon. And this is pretended from the sympathy of two needles, touched with the same loadstone, and placed in the center of two abecedary circles, or rings, with letters described round about them, one friend keeping one, and another the other, and agreeing upon an hour wherein they will communicate. For then, saith tradition, at what distance of place soever, when one needle shall be removed unto any letter, the other by a wonderful sympathy, will move unto the same. But herein I confess my experience can find no truth, for having expressly framed two circles of wood, and, according to the number of the Latine letters, divided each into twenty -three parts, placing therein "c.vo stiles, or needles, composed of the same steel, touched with the same loadstone and at the same point. Of these two, whenever I removed the one, although but at the distance of but half a span, the other would -stand like Hercules pillars, and, if the earth stand still, have surely no motion at all." *
" Pseudodoxia Epidemics, book ii. chap. 3.
14 A History of Electric Telegraphy
The Scepsis Scientifica of Joseph Glanvill, published in 1665, and which, by the way, secured his admission to the Royal Society, contains, perhaps, the most remarkable allusion to the then prevalent telegraphic fancy. Glanvill, albeit very superstitious, was an ardent and keen-sighted philosopher, and held the most hopeful views as to the discoveries that would be made in after-times. In the following passages he clearly foretells, amongst other wonders, the discovery and extension of telegraphs : —
" Should those heroes go on as they have happily begun, they'll fill the world with wonders. And I doubt not but posterity will find many things that are now but rumours verified into practical realities. It may be, some ages hence, a voyage to the southern unknown tracts, yea> possibly the moon, will not be more strange than one to America. To them that come after us it may be as ordinary to buy a pair of wings to fly into the remotest regions as now a pair of boots to ride a journey. And to confer at the distance of the Indies by sympathetic conveyances may be as usual to future times as to us in a literary correspondence^ — C. xix.
" That men should confer at very distant removes by an extemporary intercourse is a reputed impossibility, yet there are some hints in natural operations that give us probability that 'tis feasible, and may be compast without unwarrantable assistance from daemoniack correspondence. That a couple of needles equally
to the Year 1837. 15
toucht by the same magnet being set in two dyals exactly proportion'd to each other, and circumscribed by the letters of the alphabet, may affect this magnale hath considerable authorities to avouch it. The manner of it is thus represented. Let the friends that would communicate take each a dyal ; and having appointed a time for their sympathetic conference, let one move his impregnate needle to any letter in the alphabet, and its affected fellow will precisely respect the same. So that would I know what my friend would acquaint me with, 'tis but observing the letters that are pointed at by my needle, and in their order transcribing them from their sympathised index as its motion directs : and I may be assured that my friend described the same with his, and that the words on my paper are of his inditing.
" Now, though there will be some ill contrivance in a circumstance of this invention, in that the thus im- pregnate needles will not move to, but avert from each other (as ingenious Dr. Browne in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica hath observed), yet this cannot prejudice the main design of this way of secret conveyance, since 'tis but reading counter to the magnetic informer, and noting the letter which is most distant in the abecedarian circle from that which the needle turns to, and the case is not alter'd. Now, though this de- sirable effect possibly may not yet answer the expec- tation of inquisitive experiment, yet 'tis no despicable item, that by some other such way of magnetick efficiency
1 6 A History of Electric Telegraphy
it may hereafter with success be attempted, when magical history shall be enlarged by riper inspections, and 'tis not unlikely but that present discoveries might be improved to the performance." — C. xxi.
At the end of this chapter we give a list of references, as complete as we could make it, which will be useful to those of our readers who may wish to pursue the, subject. It will also be instructive from another point of view, for it illustrates, in a very complete way, what Professor Tyndall has so well called the " menial spirit " of the old philosophers.* Notwithstanding that some of the more enlightened authors endeavoured laboriously to disprove the story, it was, for the most part, blindly and unquestioningly repeated, by one writer after another — credulous and vulgar auditors, as Sir Thomas Browne says, readily believing it, and more judicious and distinctive heads not altogether rejecting it, amongst whom we are tempted to reckon the learned knight himself.
Of those who stoutly and, at an early period, com- batted the story, Fathers Cabeus and Kircher deserve
* " The seekers after natural knowledge had forsaken that fountain of living waters, the direct appeal to nature by observation and experi- ment, and had given themselves up to the remanipulation of the notions of their predecessors. It was a time when thought had become abject, and when the acceptance of mere authority led, as it always does in science, to intellectual death. Natural events, instead of being traced to physical, were referred to moral causes ; while an exercise of the phantasy, almost as degrading as the spirituaUsm of the present day, took the place of scientific speculation." — Tyndall's Address to the British Association at Belfast, 1874.
to the Year 1837. 17
to be mentioned — the one for the excellence, and the other for the vehemence of his observations. Those of the former are particularly remarkable, as contain- ing a hazy definition of the " lines of force " theory — a theory which Paraday has turned to such good account in his Experimental Researches. Cabeus, as well as we can understand him, says, in his tenth chapter : — " The action by which compass needles are mutually disturbed is not brought about by sympathy, as some persons imagine, who consider sympathy to be a certain agreement, or conformity, between natures or bodies which may be established without any com- munication. Magnetic attractions and repulsions are physical actions which take place through the instru- mentality of a certain quality, or condition, of the in- tervening space, and which [quality] extends from the influencing body to the influenced body. I cannot admit any other mode of action in magnetic phe- nomena ; nor have I ever seen in the whole circle of the sciences any instance of sympathy or antipathy [at a distance]. * * *
"That which is diffused as a medium [or, that quality, or condition, of the intervening space] is thin and subtle, and can only be seen in its effects ; nor does it affect all bodies, only such as are either con- formable with the influencing body, in which case the result is a perfecting change [or sympathy = attrac- tion], or non-conformable, in which case the result is a cprrupting change [or antipathy = repulsion]. This ? c
1 8 A History of Electric Telegraphy
quality is, I repeat, thin and subtle, and does not sensibly affect all intermediate \i. e., neighbouring] bodies, although it may be disseminated through them. It only shows a sensibly good or bad effect according to the natures of the bodies opposed to one another.
"Bodies, therefore, are not moved by sympathy or antipathy, unless it be, as I have said, through the medium of certain essences [forces] which are uni- formly diffused. When these reach a body that is suitable, they produce certain changes in it, but do not affect, sensibly, the intervening space, or neighbour- ing non-kindred bodies. Thus, the sense of smell is not perceived in the hand, nor the sense of hearing in the elbow, because, although these parts are equally immersed in the essences [or forces], they are not suitable, or kindred, in their natures to the odorife- rous, or acoustic, vibrations." *
Kircher scouts the notion in no measured terms ;
after soundly rating the propagators of the fable on
their invention of the terms chadid, almagrito, thea-
medes, almaslargont, and calamitro — vile jargon, which,
he says, was coined in the devil's kitchen — he thus
delivers himself : — " I do not recollect to have ever
» Philosophia Magnetica, &c., chap. *. A brief letter from a young Oxonian to one of his late fellow pupils upon the subject of Magnetism, London, 1697, contains, at page 10, a "draught" which illustrates very well the arrangement of magnetic lines of force, and which differs but little from the graphic representations of the present day. The curious little pamphlet is one of many gems in Mr. Latimer Clark's library.
to the Year 1837. 19
met anything more stupid and silly than this idiotic conception, in the enunciation of which I find as many lies and impositions as there are words, and a crass ignorance of magnetic phenomena withal. In their craving after something wonderful and unknown they have manufactured a secret by means of barbarous and high-sounding words and by imitating the forms of recondite science, with the result that even they themselves cannot understand their own words." *
Many of the authors, who describe the sympathetic needle (dial) telegraph, speak also of another form, which seems to have been especially believed in by the Rosicrusians and Magnetisers of the last two centuries. It was supposed that a sympathetic alphabet could be marked on the flesh, by means of which people could correspond with each other, and com- municate all their ideas with the rapidity of volition, no matter how far asunder. From the arms, or hands, of two persons intending to employ this method of correspondence a piece of flesh was cut, and mutually transplanted while still warm and bleeding. The piece grew to the new arm, but still retained so close a sympathy with its native limb, that the latter was always sensible of any injury done to it. Upon these transplanted pieces of flesh were tattooed the letters of the alphabet, and whenever a communication was to be made it was only necessary to prick with a magnetic needle the letters upon the arm composing * Magnes, sive de Arte Magneiica, book ii. part iv. chap. J.
C 2
20 A History of Electric Telegraphy
the message ; for whatever letter the one pricked, the same was instantly pained on the arm of the other.*
List of authors of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth, centuries, who either describe the sym- pathetic needle and sympathetic flesh telegraphs, or make a passing allusion to one or both of them ; chiefly compiled from Mr. Latimer Clark's list of books shown at the Paris Electrical Exhibition of 1 88 1, and from the catalogues of the British Museum. As far as possible, only first editions quoted in full : —
1558 Porta (Gian B.). Magia Naturalis, &'c. Libri IIII. 8vo. (See page 90. Other editions : Antwerp, 1561, 8vo.; Lugduni, 1561, i6mo. ; Venetia, 1560, 8vo. ; and 1665, i2mo. ; Colonise, 1562, i2mo.) Neapoli, 1558.
1570 Paracelsus {i.e.. Bombast Von Hohenheim). De Secretis natures mysteriis, &c. Svo. (Speaks only, of sympathetic flesh telegraph. Numerous editions in British Museum.) Basilese, 1570.
1586 ViGENERE (Blaise de). Traicti des Chiffres, ou Secretes Manieres tTEscrire. (Quoted in L'Elec- tHcien of Jan. 15, 1884, p. 95.) Paris, 1586.
1589 Porta (Gian B.). Magia Naturalis, d^c. Libri XX. Folio. (See preface to Book VII. for first clear mention of sympathetic needle telegraph. Other editions: Fraucofurti, 1607, Svo. ; Napoli, 161 1,
* Upon this delusion is founded Edmund About's curious novel, Le Nez d'un Notaire, in which he relates the odd results of sympathy between the notary's nose and the arm of the man from whom the flesh was taken. But it is not in novels only, that we read of instances of the marvellous power of sympathy in these enlightened days ; witness the story of The Sympathetic Snail Telegraph of Messrs. Biat and Benoit, which went the rounds of the newspapers forty years ago, and which the curious— we were going to say sympathetic— reader will find fully described in Chamber^s Edinburgh Journal, for February 15, 1851.
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4to. ; Hanoviae, 1619, 8vo. ; Lugduni, 1644 ^^^ 1651, i2mo. ; London, 1658, 4to. ; and Amstelodami, 1664, l2mo.) Neapoli, 1589.
1599 Pancirollus (G.)- Serum Memorabilium, &c. 8vo.
(See Book II. [Nova Reperta], chap, xi., Notes, This author refers to Scaliger [Exofericarum exer- citationem, &c., exercit. 131], and Bodin \Methodus ad facilem Historiarum, &c., chap, vii.], but they only speak of magnetic sympathy at great distances, without any reference to telegraphy. Other editions : two 8vo., Ambergse, 1607 and 1612 ; four Franco- fiirti, 1622, 1629-31, 1646, and 1660; Lyon, 1617 ; and London, 1715.) Ambergae, 1599.
1600 De Sunde (J. H.) («. e., Daniel Schwenter). Stegano-
logia et Steganographia, 8vo. (See p. 127. Janus Hercules de Sunde is an assumed name, Hiller in the preface to his Mysterum Artis Steganograpkicce 1682, says that it is a synonym for Daniel Schwenter Noribergense; and again on p, 287, quoting Schwenter, he adds in parenthesis, " is est Hercules de Sunde," Other edition : Niimberg, 1650, l2mo.) Niirnberg, i6oo.
1609 De Boodt (Anselmus B,), Gemmarum et Lapidum
Historia, &c. 4to. (See Book II, Other editions : Lugduni, 1636, 8vo. ; Lyon, 1644, 8vo. ; and again Lugduni, 1647, 8vo.) Hanoviae, 1609,
1610 Argolus (Andreas), EpistolaadDavidemFabrkium
Frisium. (He made what he calls a " Stenographic Compass," and held many agreeable conversations by its means with one of his friends.)
In Ephemeridae Patavii, l6lo.
1610 Arlensis (Petrus), of Scudalupis. Sympathia Septem Metallorum, &c, 8vo. (See chap, 2, This writer, a noted astrologer and alchemist, was the friend and fellow-citizen of Porta, to whom he seems to attribute the first conception of the sympathetic needle telegraph. His Sympathia was first published at Rome, but immediately suppressed in order that its grand secrets might not become known. It next appeared at Madrid in folio. The Paris ed. of 1610 was reissued at Hamburg in 1717.) Parisiis, 1610.
1617 Strada (Famianus). ProluHones Academics, &c. 870. (See Lib, IL, Prol, VL Other editions:
22 A History of Electric Telegraphy
Lugduni, 1617, and 1627, sm. 8vo. ; Audomari, 1619, i2ino. ; Mediolani, 1626, l6mo. ; Oxoiiiae, 1631, 8vo. ; and again Ozonise, 1745, 8vo.) Romse, 1617. 1624 Van Etten (H.), (i e., Leurechon Jean). La Rkriation MathimaHque, &c. Svo. (See p. 94. This author is the first to give a drawing of the dial. H. Van Etten was a nom de plume. See Notes and Queries, 1st series, vol. xi, p. 516. Other editions: Paris, 1626 ; Lyon, 1627 ; and three London, 1633, 1653, and 1674. To the two latter is added a work of Oughtred, the editor, whose name is so conspicuous on the title-page, that rapid cataloguers make him the author. Ozanam founded his Recreations on Van Etten ; Montucla made a new book of Ozanam by large additions ; and Hutton did the same by Montucla, so that Hutton's well-known work is at the end of a chain, of which Van Etten's is at the beginning. Notes and Queries, 1st series, vol. xi. p. S04O Pont-k-Mousson, 1624.
1629 Cabeus (Nicolas). Philosophia Magnetica, &c
Folio. (See p. 302.) Colonise, 1629.
1630 Hakewill (George). An Afologie or Declaration
of the Power and Providence of God, &c. Folio. (See p. 285. This is second edition ; a first appeared in [J] 1627, and a third in 1635. London and Oxford, 1630.
1630 Mydorge (Claude). Examen du livre des Rkria'
tions Mathhiatiques, &c. l2mo. (See Problem 74, pp. 140-44. This is a critically revised edition of Van Etten. Another edition, Paris, 1638.) Paris, 1630.
1631 KiRCHER (Athanasius). Ars Magnesia, &c. 4to.
(See pp. 35 and 36.) HerbipoU, 163 1.
1632 Galileo (G.). Dialogus de Systemate Mundi, &c.
4to. (See p. 88. Editions innumerable in British Museum catalogue.) Fiorenza, 1632.
1636 SCHWENTER (Daniel). Delicia Physico-Mathematica. (See p. 346. This work is based on Van Etten's, supra. Two other 4to. editions appeared at Niim- r c ^ ^^''^' .'J?5i-3 and 1677.) Numberg, 1636.
1638 Fludd (Robert). Philosophia Moysaica, &c. Folio. (See Sec. II., Lib. II., Memb. II., Cap. V., and Sec. II., Lib. III., passim. An edition in English appeared in London, 1659.) Goudse, 1638.
to ike Year 1837, 23
1641 KiRCHER (Athanasius). Magnes, sive de Arte Mc^g- netica. Sm. 4to. (See p. 382. Other editions : Coloniae, 1643, 4to. ; and Romae, 1654, folio.)
Romse, 1641.
1641 WlLKiNS (John). Mercury, or the secret and swift messenger, showing how a man with frivcuy and speed may communicate his thoughts to a friend at any distance, i2mo. (See p. 147. Another edition in 1694.) London, 1 641.
1643 Servius (Petrus). Dissertatio de Unguento Armario, Sive De Naturiz Artisque Miraculis. (See para. 65, p. 68. This work is printed in Rattray's Theatrum, &c., infra.) Romse, 1643.
1646 Browne (Sir Thomas). Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Enquiries into very many received tenents, and com- monly presumed truths, 4to. (See p. 76. Numerous editions in the British Museum.) London, 1646.
1657 Turner (ROBT.). Ars Notoria. The Notary Art of Solomon, showing the cabalistical key of magical opera- tions, &c. i8mo. (See p. 136.) London, 1657.
1657-9 SCHOTT (Gaspar). Magia Universalis Natures et Artis,&c. 4 vols. 4to. (See vol. iv. p. 49. Copied from De Sunde and Kircher. Other edition : Bam- bergse, 1677, 4to.) Herbipoli, 1657-9.
1661 Henrion (Denis) and Mydorge (Claude). Les Rkriations Mathimatiques, avec I'examen de ses pro- blimps, &c. Premi^rement reveu par D. Henrion, depuis par M. Mydorge, Cinquieme et derniire ed. l2mo. (See Problem 74, pp. 158-61. This is only a revised edition of Mydorge's Van Etten, of 1630.)
Paris, 1661.
1661 Glanvill (J.). The Vanity of Dogmatising, and an
Apology for Philosophy. 8vo. (See p. 202.) London, 1661.
1662 Westen (Wynant Van). Het eerste Deel van de
Maihematische Vermaeck, &c. 8vo. Three parts. (See p. 125, Part I. This is an enlarged Dutch edition of Van Etten's, supra.) Amhem, 1662.
1662 Rattray (Sylvester). Theatrum Sympatheticum A-uctum, exhibens Varios Authores de Pulvere Sympa- thetica, &c. 4to. (See p. 546, see Petrus Servius, supra.) Norimbergae, 1662.
24 A History of Electric Telegraphy
1663 Helvetius (J. F.). Theatridium fferculis Triumph-
antis, &c. 8vo. (See pp. 11 and 15.) Haye, 1663.
1665 Glanvill (Joseph). Scepsis Scientifica; or, Confest Ignorance the Way to Science, &c. 4to. (See p. 150.)
London, 1665. 1665 ScHOTT (Caspar). Schola Steganographica, &c. 4to. (See pp. 258-64. Description from De Sunde's, supra, with an elaborate d^a^ving of the dial. Copper- plate title-page bears date 1665, printed title-page dated 1680.) Norimbergse, 1665.
1676 Heidel (W. E.). Johannis Tritheniii, Sfc, Stegano- graphia que Hucusqu : a nemine intellecta, &c. 4to. (See p. 358.) Moguntise, 1676.
1679 Maxwell (William). De Medicina Magnetica, &'c. Lib. III. i2mo. (See chaps. 11, 12, and 13.)
Francofurti, 1679. 16S4 De Lanis (Franciscus). Magisterium Nature et Ariis, Opus Physico-Matkematicum. 3 vols. (See vol. ill. p. 412.) Brixise, 1684-96.
1684 Marana (G. p.) (or The Turkish Spy). VEspion du Grand Seigneur, &c. i2mo. (See vol. i., 13th letter, dated Paris, 1639. Six other editions in British Museum.) ? Paris, 1684, &c.
1689 Blagrave (Joseph). Astrological Practice of Physick,
&c. i2mo. (See p. 112.) London, 1689.
1689 De Rennefort (Souchu). V Aiman Mystique. i2mo.
Paris, 1689. 1696 De Vallemont (Pierre LE Lorrain). La Physique Occulte, ou traits de la Baguette Divinatoire, &c. i2mo. (See p. 32 of Appendix. Other editions : Paris and Amsterdam, 1693, i2mo. ; and Amsterdam, 1696, i2mo.) Paris, i6g6.
1701-2 Le Brun (Pierre). Histoire Critique des Pratiques Super stitieuses. 2 vols. i2mo. (See vol. i. p. 294. Other editions : Amsterdam, 1733-36 ; and Paris, 1750-1.) Rouen, 170 1-2.
1711-13 Addison (Joseph). The Spectator, No. 241, for 1711. (Seep.206. Seealso The Guardian, No. 119, for 1713.) London, 1711-13.
1718 Du Petit Albert. Secrets Merveilleux de la Magie Naturelle et Cabalistique, (See p. 228. Other edi- tions: Lyon, 1743 and 1762 ; and Paris, 1815.) Lyon, 1718.
to the Year 1837. 25
1723 Santanelli (F.). Phihsophia Reconditce, sive Magica
Magnetic^, &c. 4to. (See chap, xiv.) Coloniee, 1723.
1730 Bailey (Nathan). Dictionarium Britannicum, &c. Folio. See word "Loadstone." Another London edition of 1736.) London, 1730.
1744 Akenside (Mark). The Pleasures of Imagination.
(See Book III., verses 325-37.) London, 1744,
1750-1 " Misographos." The Student ; or, the Oxford and Cambridge Monthly Miscellany. 2 vols. (See vol. i. p. 354. A translation of Strada's verses.) Oxford, 1750-1.
1762 Diderot. Memoirs. Correspondance et ouvrages inldits de Diderot. (See p. 278. Diderot, in his letter to Madame VoUand of 28th July, 1 762, alludes to Comus [Ledru] and his supposed telegraph.) Paris, 1841.
1769 GUYOT. Nouvelles Rkriations Physiques et Mathi- matiques. 4 vols. 8vo. (See vol. i. p. 17. At p. 134 there is a full description, with illustrations, of what was probably Comus's apparatus. Two other Paris editions of 1786 and 1799') Paris, 1769.
1788 Barthelemy (Jean Jacques). Voyage du feune Anacharsis en Grlce, &c'. 4to. (Quoted in yournal of the Society of Arts, May 20, 1 859, p. 472 : twelve other editions (of which three are English transla- tions) in the British Museum. See also Correspon- dance InMite du Madame du Deffand, vol. ii. p. 99.)
Paris, 1788.
1795 Edgeworth (Richard Lovell). Essay on the Art of Conveying Secret and Swift Intelligence. Published in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. (See vol. vi. p. 125.) Dublin, 1797,
1797 Gamble (J.). An Essay on the Different Modes of Communication by Signals, &c. 4to. (See p. 57.)
London, 1797.
26 A History of Electric Telegraphy
CHAPTER II.
STATIC, OR FRICTIONAL, ELECTRICITY— HISTORY IN RELATION TO TELEGRAPHY.
" Thales call, He, whose enquiring mind paused musingly On the mysterious power, to action roused By amber rubbed. This power (to him) a spirit. Woke from Its slumbers by all- wondrous art."
Oersted's The Soul in Nature, p. 157 of Bohn's edition.
The science of electricity is a comparatively modern creation, dating only from the commencement of the seventeenth century. It owes nothing, or almost nothing, to antiquity, and, in this respect, forms a remarkable contrast to most of the other branches of human knowledge — notably those of astronomy and mechanics, heat and light. The vast discoveries, says Lardner, which have accumulated respecting this extraordinary agent, by which its connection with, and influence upon, the whole material universe — its relations to the phenomena of organised bodies — the part it plays in the functions of animal and vegetable vitality — its subservience to the uses of man as a mechanical power — its intimate connection with the chemical constitution of material substances — in fine.
to the Year 1837. 27
its application in almost every division of the sciences, and every department of the arts, have been severally demonstrated, are exclusively and peculiarly due to the spirit of modern research, and, in a great degree, to the labours of the present age.*
Yet it is not that, in this case, nature had concealed her secrets with more than her usual coyness, for we find, scattered through the writings of the ancients, many observations on a class of phenomena, which, if rightly examined, must have led to the establishment of electricity as a department of physics.
That amber acquires, by friction, the power of attracting light bodies, such as bits of straw, wood, and dry leaves, is a fact which is probably as old as the discovery of the substance itself. Thales, one of the seven wise men of Greece, described the property six hundred years before Christ, and not as if it were with him a new phenomenon, but rather as a familiar illustration of his philosophical tenets, f Aristotle, Pliny, and other Greek and Roman writers, also record the fact, and even sometimes mention luminous appearances attending the friction. % Theophrastus, B.C. 321, on the authority of Diodes, speaks of the lapis lyncurius, supposed to be our modern tourma-
* Manual of Electricity, Magnetism, and Meteorology, vol. i. p. 2.
t He ascribed to amber some living principle, some soul, which could be roused to action by friction, and, in the spirit of the age, it was declared sacred. For the same reason, the loadstone was venerated, it being supposed to possess an immaterial spirit under the influence of which it attracted iron. — Aristotle, De Anima, i. 2.
X Pliny, book xxxvii. chap. iii.
28 A History of Electric Telegraphy
line, as possessing the same property as amber, add- ing that it attracts not only straws and leaves, but copper also, and even iron, if it be in small particles.*
The emission of sparks from the human body, when submitted to friction, had also been noticed, as in the case of Servius Tullius, the sixth King of Rome, whose locks were frequently observed to give off sparks under the operations of the toilette. Eustathius, Bishop of Thessalonica, A.D. ii6q, cites another in- stance in his Commentarii ad Homeri Iliadem, that of a certain ancient philosopher, who, occasionally, when changing his dress, emitted sparks, and, sometimes, even entire flames, accompanied by crackling i;oises. He also mentions the case of Walimer, a Gothic chief, who flourished A.D. 415, who used to give off sparks from his body.f
The Greeks and Romans were not the only people
* De Lapidibus, p. 124, Hill's edition.
t In Iliad, E, p. 515, Roman ed. We do not notice the frequent allusions in the pages of Caesar, Livy, Plutarch, and others, to flames at the points of the soldiers' javelins, at the tops of the masts of ships, and, sometimes, even on the heads of the sailors themselves ; for all these phenomena, though now known to be of the same nature as those described in the text, were then regarded simply as manifestations of the gods. See a very interesting example of this in Plutarch's Lifi of Timohon, vol. iii. p. 16, Dacier's edition. For much interesting information on this subject, see Dr. William Falconer's " Observa- tions on the Knowledge of the Ancients respecting Electricity," in vol. iii. Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester 1790 J also Tomlinson's The Thunderstorm, p. 96. In the early ages of the Church, the Popes were often reckoned as magicians, Gregory VII. being held in especial awe, because when he pulled oif his gloves fiery sparks issued from them.
to the Year 1837. 29
of antiquity to whom these phenomena were familiar. Thus, in the Persian language amber is called Kdh- rubd, or attractor of straw, as the magnet is called Akang-rubd, or attractor of iron. In the old Persian romance. The Loves of Majnoon and Leila, the lover says of his adored one, " She was as amber, and I but as straw ; she touched me, and I shall ever cling to her." In the writings of Kuopho, a Chinese physicist of the fourth century, we read, " The attraction of a magnet for iron is like that of amber for the smallest grain of mustard seed. It is like a breath of wind, which mysteriously penetrates through both, and communicates itself with the rapidity of an arrow."
Humboldt,* after referring to this interesting fact, tells us how he himself had observed, with astonish- ment, on the woody banks of the Orinoco, in the sports of the natives, that the excitement of electricity by friction was known to these savage races. Children, he says, may be seen to rub the dry, flat, and shining seeds, or husks, of a trailing plant until they are able to attract threads of cotton and pieces of bamboo cane.
Such phenomena, says Lardner, in the work from which we lately quoted,! attracted little attention, and provoked no scientific research. Vacant wonder was the most exalted sentiment they raised ; and they accordingly remained, while centuries rolled away, * Cosmos, London, 1849 ed,, vol. i. p. 176. f Vol. i. p. 4.
30 A History of Electric Telegraphy
barren and isolated facts upon the surface of human knowledge. The vein whence these precious frag- ments were detached, and which, as we have shown, cropped out sufficiently often to challenge the notice of the miner, continued unexplored ; and its splendid treasures were reserved to reward the toil and crown the enterprise of modern times.
Without going the length of asserting that electrical phenomena were entirely neglected during the long night of the middle ages, it seems certain that, with the exception of the discovery of the electrical pro- perty of jet, little advance was made up to the close of the sixteenth century. Then it was that Dr. Gilbert, of Colchester, for the first time collected the scattered fragments, and, with many valuable observa- tions of his own, shaped them into the nucleus of a new science, to which he gave the name Electricity, from the Greek word ■yjXeKrpov, signifying amber. In his great work, De Magnete* published in the year 1600, he described the only three substances known up to his time as susceptible of electrical ex- citation, and added a variety of others, such as spars, jems, fossils, glasses, and resins, which enjoyed, equally with them, the power of attracting not only light
* This book, although mainly devoted to magnetism, has many pages on electricity ; and, besides its intrinsic value, is interesting as containing the first publications on our subject. William Gilbert was a member of the College of Physicians, London, and became Physician in Ordinary to Queen Elizabeth, who, conceiving a high opinion of his learning, allowed him an annual pension to enable him to prosecute his studies. He died in 1603.
to the Year 1837. 31
bodies, like feathers and straws, but all solid and fluid matter, as metals, stones, water, and oil.
He also observed some of the circumstances which affect the production of electricity, such as the hygro- metric state of the atmosphere. Thus, he noticed that when the wind blew from the north and east, and was dry, the body could be excited by a brisk and light friction continued for a few minutes, but that when the wind was from the south and moist, it was diffi- cult, and sometimes impossible, to excite it at all. In order to test the condition of the various substances experimented upon, Gilbert made use of a light needle of any metal, balanced, and turning freely on a pivot, like the magnetic needle, to the extremities of which he presented the bodies after excitation.
Some of Gilbert's deductions were curiously falla- cious. In pointing out, for instance, the distinction between magnetic and electric attraction, he affirmed that magnets and iron mutually attracted each other, but that when an electric was excited it alone attracted, the substances attracted remaining inactive. He noticed also, as a special distinction between mag- netism and electricity, that the former repelled as well as attracted, whilst the latter only attracted.*
The few references to electricity in the works of
Sir Francis Bacon, Nicolas Cabeus, Kenelm Digby,
Gassendi, Descartes, Thomas Browne, and others,
may be passed over in silence, as they are chiefly
* De Magnete, lib. ii. cap. 2-4.
32 A History of Electric Telegraphy
theoretical, and did not contribute in any way to the advancement of the science.*
The celebrated Robert Boyle, to whom some of the other physical sciences owe such great obligations, directed much of his attention to the subject of elec- tricity, and has left us an account of his experiments, in a small work, entitled Experiments and Notes about the Mechanical Origine or Production of Elec- tricity, London, 1675. By means of a suspended needle, he discovered that amber retained its attrac- tive virtue after the friction which excited it had ceased ; and though smoothness of surface had been regarded as advantageous for excitation, yet he found a diamond, which, in its rough state, exceeded all the polished ones, and all the electrics that he had tried, it having been able to move the needle three minutes after he had ceased to rub it. He found also that heat and " tersion " {i. e., the cleaning or wiping of any body) increased the electrical effect ; and that if the attracted body were fixed, and the attracting one movable, their approach would take place all the same, thus disproving one of Gilbert's deductions. To Dr. Gilbert's list of electrics, he added several new ones, as glass of antimony, white sapphire, white amethyst, carnelian, &c.
Like all his predecessors, Boyle (in whom, by the
way, the theorising faculty was particularly strong)
* Jacob Bohmen, the Teutonic Theosopher, who lived 1575-1624, and who wrote largely on astrology, philosophy, chemistry, and divinity, has some pages on electricity. See Notes and Queries, ]\ibf 2%, 1855, p. 63.
to the Year 1837. 33
speculated, in his turn, on the cause of electrical phenomena ; but it seems that he, as well as they, could find no better explanation than that offered by the Ionic sage, twenty-three centuries before. The supposition was that the excited body threw out a glutinous or unctuous effluvium, which laid hold of small bodies in its path, and, on returning to its source, carried them along with it* The Philosophical Transactions of this period contain some learned dis- quisitions in support of this (now strange) hypothesis, and even experiments are described which were con- sidered as conclusive of its correctness.f
Otto Guericke, burgomaster of Magdeburg, and in- ventor of the air-pump, was contemporary with Boyle, and to him we owe some most important advances. In 1 67 1, he constructed the first electrical machine, by means of which he was able to produce electricity in far greater quantities than had hitherto been possible from the friction of glass or sulphur rods. With this machine, which consisted of a globe of
* Boyle is sometimes said to have been the first, in modem times, to observe the electric light — an assertion which seems to be based upon his observation, in 1663, of the light which some diamonds gave out, in the dark, after being rubbed. But it is doubtful if this was not an optical rather than an electrical effect, an instance of what may be called latent light, and therefore belonging to the class of phenomena, of which the celebrated Bologna stone, discovered in 1602 by the quondam shoemaker Casiorolus, was the first recorded example, as Balmain's luminous paint is the last. For much interesting infor- mation on this subject, see Sir D. Brewster's Letters on NaturtjX Magic. t Phil. Trans., for 1699, vol. xxi. p. 5.
D
34 A History of Electric Telegraphy
sulphur,* mounted on a revolving axis, and excited by the friction of a cloth held in the hand, he discovered
Fig. 2,
The First Electrical Machine, copied from p. 148 of Otto Guericke's Experimenta Nova, &c.
the " hissing noise and gleaming light " which accom- pany strong electrification.
* Sulphur, it may be remarked, was a favourite electric with early experimenters, as it was imagined that electricity was emitted with the sulphurous effluvium produced by the friction. In the construction of his machine, Guericke, for example, cast the sulphur in a glass globe, which he afterwards broke, so as to expose the sulphur to the action of the rubber, little imagining that the glass globe itself would have answered his purpose just as well.
to the Year 1837. 35
To him also belongs the discovery of the property of electrical repulsion. He ascertained that a feather, when attracted to an excited electric, was instantly repelled, and was incapable of a second attraction, until it had been touched by the finger or some other body. He also observed that a feather, when thus repelled, always kept the same side towards the ex- cited electric — a fact the correspondence of which with the position of the moon towards the earth, induced him and other philosophers to assume that the revolu- tion of the moon round the earth might be explained on electrical principles. Again, in the observation that a substance becomes electric by being merely brought near to another electrified body, Guericke discovered the fact, though not the principle, of in- duction.*
Newton, about the same time, published another effect of induction, viz. : one side of a glass plate being electrified, the other side will also be electrified, and will attract any light bodies within its influence. Laying upon a table a disc of glass two inches broad, in a brass hoop or ring, so that it might be one-eighth of an inch from the table, and then rubbing it briskly, little pieces of paper, laid upon the table under the glass, moved nimbly to and fro, and twirled about in the air, continuing these motions for a considerable time after he had ceased rubbing. Upon sliding his
* Experimenta Nova Magdeburgica, Amstelodami, 1672, lib. iv. cap. 15.
D 2
36 A History of Electric Telegraphy
finger over the glass, though he did not agitate it, nor, by consequence, the air beneath, he observed that the papers, as they hung under the glass, would receive some new motion, inclining this way or that, according to the direction of his finger.
The Royal Society had ordered this experiment to be repeated at their meeting of December i6, 1675, and, in order to ensure its success, had obtained a full account of it from its distinguished author. The ex- periment, however, failed, and the secretary requested the loan of Sir Isaac's apparatus, inquiring, at the same time, whether or not he had guarded against the papers being disturbed by the air which might have somewhere stolen in? In replying, on the 21st of December, Newton advised them to rub the glass " with stuff whose threads may rake its surface, and if that will not do, rub it with the finger ends to and fro, and knock them as often upon the glass." Following these directions, the Society succeeded, on January 31, 1676, when they used a scrubbing brush of short hog's bristles, and the heft of a knife made with whalebone ! *
In the 8th and 27th queries at the end of his treatise on Optics, Newton has introduced the sub- ject of electricity in such a manner as to convey some notion of the theoretical views which he had been led to form. He says (8th query) : — " A globe of glass about eight or ten inches in diameter being put into a
* See Brewster's Life of Sir Isaac Newton, pp. 307-8 ; or Birch's Hiitory of the Royal Society, vol. iii. pp. 260-70.
to the Year 1837, 37
frame where it may be swiftly turned round, its axis
will, in turning, shine where it rubs against the palm
of one's hand applied to it ; and if at the same time a
piece of white paper be held at the distance of half
an inch from the glass, the electric vapour, which is
excited by the friction of the glass against the hand,
will, by dashing against the paper, be put into such
an agitation as to emit light, and make the paper
appear livid like a glow-worm. In rushing out of the
glass, it will even sometimes push against the finger
so as to be felt." And again, in the 27th query, he
says : — " Let him also tell me how an electric body
can, by friction, emit an exhalation so rare and subtile,
and yet so potent, as by its emission to cause no
sensible diminution of the weight of the electric body,
and to be expanded through a sphere whose diameter
is above two feet, and yet to be able to agitate and
carry up leaf copper, or leaf gold, at the distance of
above a foot from the electric body." *
Between 1705 and 171 1, Hauksbee made many
* These appear to be the only published observations of the great Sir Isaac on electrical matters ; but it would seem that, in moments of leisure from weightier business, he bestowed an occasional glance on the infant science. This will be apparent from the following extract from an autograph letter, which Mr. Latimer Clark has lately unearthed, and which will be found in full in The Electrician Journal, for April i6, 1881 : — "I have been much amused by ye singular ^eyo/nera resulting from bringing of a needle into contact with a piece of amber or resin fricated on silke clothe. Ye flame putteth me in mind of sheet lightning on a small (how very small) scale." Although this letter is dated "London, December Ij, 1716," it would seem from the wording that Newton was unaware of similar comparisons instituted several years before, by Hauksbee and Wall.
38 A History of Electric Telegraphy
valuable and interesting observations, of which we must content ourselves with a brief r^sum^, referring our readers for fuller accounts to the original papers in the Philosophical Transactions, or to Priestley's excellent History and Present State of Electricity, pp. 15-23, Sth ed. In 1705, he showed that light could be produced by passing common air through mercury, contained in a well-exhausted glass receiver. The air, rushing through the mercury, blew it against the sides of the glass, and made it appear like a body of fire, consisting of an abundance of glowing globules. In repeating this experiment with about three pounds of mercury, and making it break into a shower, by dashing it against the crown of another glass vessel, flashes resembling lightning, of a very pale colour, and distinguishable from the rest of the produced light, were thrown off from the crown of the glass in all directions.* Hauksbee likewise showed that con- siderable light may be produced by agitating mercury in a partially exhausted tube ; and that even in the open air numerous flashes of light are discoverable by shaking quicksilver in any glass vessel.
* Electric light m zJacao was first observed by Picard 1111675. While carrying a barometer from the Observatory to Porte St. Michel in Paris, he observed light in the vacuous portion. Sebastien and Cassini observed it afterwards in other barometers. John Eernouilli, in 1700, devised a " mercurial phosphorus " by shaking mercury in a tube which had been exhausted by an air-pump. This was handed to the King of Prussia — Frederick I. — who awarded it a medal, of forty ducats' value. The great mathematician wrote a poem in honour of the occasion. — Tyndall's Notes on Electricity.
to the Year 1837. 39
In a subsequent series of experiments on the light produced by the attrition of bodies in vacuo, he showed that glass, when thus excited, emitted light in as strange a form as lightning, particularly when he used a rubber that had been previously drenched in spirits of wine. In all these experiments Hauksbee had no notion of the electrical origin of the light, and in saying that it resembled lightning he was only using a simile, without any suspicion of a closer connection.
Like Sir Isaac Newton, Hauksbee employed a glass globe machine, as he thought that this material was capable of more powerful effects. When exhausted of air, and turned briskly, the application of his hand would produce a strong light on the inside ; and, by re-admitting the air, light appeared on the outside also. By bringing an exhausted globe near to an excited one, he found that a light was produced in the former, which soon disappeared ; but which immediately re- appeared, with great beauty, on a further excitation.
The following experiment must at that time, and indeed for long after, have been considered one of great singularity. Having coated one half of the inside of a glass globe with sealing-wax, which in some places was an eighth of an inch thick, and therefore quite opaque, he exhausted it and put it in motion. On applying his hand, for the purpose of excitation, its outline soon became distinctly visible on the con- cave surface of the wax, thus making it seem to be
40 A History of Electric Telegraphy
transparent, although before excitation it would only just allow the flame of a lighted candle to be seen through it in the dark. The same result was obtained when pitch, or common brimstone, was substituted for the sealing-wax.
Besides light and crackling noises, Hauksbee also noticed that an electrified body was able to produce a sense of pain (the ' electric shock) in the hand, or face, that touched it — an observation which is also claimed for his friend. Dr. Wall.
This latter philosopher is, however, best known as being the first to suspect the identity of lightning and electricity. The happy thought was suggested to him, as he tells us in a paper read before the Royal Society in 1708, by the sparks and crackling sounds produced by the friction of a large stick of amber against a woollen cloth. " Upon drawing," he says, " the piece of amber swiftly through the woollen cloth, and squeezing it pretty hard with my hand, a prodigious number of little cracklings was heard, every one of which produced a little flash of light; but when the amber was drawn gently and slightly through the cloth, it produced a light, but no crackling. By holding a finger at a little distance from the amber a crackling is produced, with a great flash of light succeeding it ; and what is very surprising, on its eruption it strikes the finger very sensibly, where- soever applied, with a push or puff like wind. The crackling is full as loud as that of charcoal on fire •
to the Year 1837. 41
nay, five or six cracklings, or more, according to the quickness of placing the finger, have been produced from one single friction, light always succeeding each of them. Now I doubt not but on using a longer and larger piece of amber, both the cracklings and light would be much greater. This light and crackling seem in some degree to represent thunder and lightning." *
So far, experimenters had worked without any system, and without in the least comprehending the principles on which the effects they produced depended. Highly important as were all their obser- vations, the true foundations of electricity as a science cannot, therefore, be said to have been laid until Stephen' Gray, a pensioner of the Charter-house, London, gave to the world that justly celebrated series of experiments which, begun in 1720, only ended with his last breath in 1736.! As from this point the domain widens, we will confine ourselves in the rest of this chapter to noticing only such dis- coveries of Gray and succeeding philosophers as bear intimately on our subject.
In February 1729, Gray discovered the principle of electric conduction and insulation, and in doing
* Hutton's Phil. Trans. Abridged, vol. v. p. 409.
t This remarkable man was (so to speak) dying when his last experi- ments were made, and, unable to write himself, he dictated an account of them to Dr. Mortimer, the secretary of the Royal Society, the day before his death. — See Phil. Trans., vol. xxxix. p. 400, 1735-36, or Hutton's Abridgment, vol. viii. p. 1 10.
42 A History of Electric Telegraphy
so might almost be said to have invented electric telegraphy, of which it is the very alpha and omega. This important discovery was made in the following manner : — Wishing to excite in metals, as had already been done in glass, resin, &c., the power of attraction and repulsion, he tried various methods, such as rub- bing, heating, and hammering ; but all to no end. At last an idea occurred to him that, as a glass tube, when rubbed in the dark, communicated its light freely to bodies, so it might communicate a power of attraction, which, at this time, was considered the only absolute proof of the presence of electricity. In order to ^est this, he took a glass tube, 3 feet S inches long and I inch diameter, and filled up the ends with pieces of cork to keep out the dust when the tube was not in use. His first experiment was to ascertain if there was any difference in its power of attraction when the tube was stopped at both ends by the corks, and when left entirely open ; but he could perceive no sensible difference. Then holding a feather over against the end of the tube, he found it would fly to the cork, being attracted by it as readily as by the tube itself. He concluded from this that the electric virtue, con- ferred on the tube by friction, passed spontaneously to the cork.
It then occurred to him * to inquire whether this
* We follow in this and the next three paragraphs Lardner's Manual of Electricity, Magnetism, &c., vol. i. pp. 8-9. See also Priestley's Hiitory of Electricity, pp. 24-39.
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transmission of electricity would be made to other sub- stances besides cork. With this view he obtained a deal rod about four inches in length, to one end of which he attached an ivory ball, and inserted the other in the cork, by which the glass tube was stopped. On exciting the tube, he found that the ivory ball attracted and repelled the feather even more vigorously than the cork. He then tried longer rods of deal, and pieces of brass and iron wire, with like results. Finally he attached to one end of the tube a piece of com- mon packthread, and, suspending from its lower end the ivory ball and various other bodies, found that all of them were capable of acquiring the electric state when the tube was excited. Experiments of this kind were made from the balconies of his house and other elevated stations.
With a true philosophic spirit, he now determined to inquire what circumstances attending the manner of experimenting produced any real effect upon the results ; and, first, whether the position or direction of the rods, wires, or cords, by which the electricity was transmitted from the excited tube, affected the pheno- mena. For this purpose he extended a piece of packthread in a horizontal direction, supporting it at different points by other pieces of similar cord, which were attached to nails driven into a wooden beam, and which were, therefore, in a vertical position. To one end of the horizontal cord he attached the ivory ball, and to the other he tied the end of the glass tube. On
44 A History of Electric Telegraphy
exciting the tube he found that no electricity was transmitted to the ball, a circumstance which he rightly ascribed to its escape by the vertical cords, the nails supporting them, and the wooden beam.
Soon after this (June 30, 1729), Gray was engaged in repeating his experiments at the house of Mr. Wheeler, who was afterwards associated with him in these investigations, when that gentleman suggested that threads of silk should be used to support the horizontal line of cord, instead of pieces of packthread. It does not appear that this suggestion of Wheeler proceeded from any knowledge, or suspicion, of the electric properties of silk ; and still less does it appear that Gray was acquainted with them ; for, in assent- ing to the proposition of his friend, he observed, that " silk might do better than packthread on account of its smallness, as less of the virtue would probably pass off by it than by the thickness of the .hempen line which had been previously used."
They accordingly (July 2, 1729) extended a pack- thread through a distance of about eighty feet in a horizontal direction, supporting it by threads of silk. To one end they attached the ivory ball, and to the other the glass tube. When the latter was excited, the ball immediately became electric, as was mani- fested by its attracting metallic leaf held near it. Next day, they extended their experiments to lines of packthread still longer, when the silk threads used for its support were found to be too weak, and were
to the Year 1837. 45
broken. Being under the (erroneous) impression that the escape of the electricity was prevented by the fineness of the silk, they now substituted for it thin brass wire, which they expected, being still finer than the silk, would more effectually intercept the electricity ; and which, from its nature, would have all the necessary strength. The experiment, how- ever, completely failed. No electricity was conveyed to the ivory ball, the whole having escaped by the brass wire, notwithstanding its fineness. They now saw that the silk threads intercepted the electricity, because they were silk, and not because they were fine.
Having thus accidentally discovered the property of insulation, they proceeded to investigate its gene- ralisation, and found that it was enjoyed by resin, hair, glass, and some other substances.
In fact, it soon became apparent that in this respect
all matter may be said to belong to one of two classes,
the one like the packthread and brass wire, favouring
the dissipation, or carrying away, of the electric power,
and the other like the silk and glass opposing it.*
* Soon after this^ in August 1729, Gray discovered that when the electrified tube was brought near to any part of a non-electric or con- ducting body, without touching it, the part most remote from the tube became electrified. He thus fell upon the fact, which afterwards led to the principle of induction. The science, however, was not yet ripe for that great discovery, and Gray, like Otto Guericke before him, and Wilson and Canton after him, continued to apply the principles of induction without the most remote suspicion of the rich mine whose treasures lay beneath his feet, and which it was one of the glories of Franklin to bring- to light.
46 A History of Electric Telegraphy
Armed with this knowledge, Gray and Wheeler, in July 1729, had the great satisfaction of being able to transmit the electric power through as much as 765 feet of packthread, supported by loops of silk ; and in August 1730, through 886 feet of wire. It is curious to observe that in these experiments, as, indeed, in all others on electrical conduction, we have all the essen- tials— crude, of course — of a perfect telegraph, the insulated line, the source of electricity in the rubbed glass, the indicating instrument in the down feather, and the earth, or return circuit, the function of which, however, was not then suspected.
While Gray and Wheeler were pursuing their investigations in England, Dufay, of the Academy of Sciences, and Intendant of the Royal Botanic Gardens, was actively engaged in Paris, in a similar manner. The researches of this philosopher, so cele- brated as the originator * of the double-fluid theory of electricity, embraced the period between 1733 and 1737. He added largely to the class of bodies called electrics, by showing that all substances, except metals, and bodies in the soft or liquid state, might be made electric, by first heating them, and then rubbing them on any kind of cloth ; and as regards even these
* He can hardly be called its author— at all events in its present form. For Symmer's claims to this honour, the reader is referred to Priestley's History of Electricity, p. 227. The writer of the article Electricity in the Encyclofcedia Britannica, 7th edition, says, but we know not on what authority, that this important discovery was simultaneously and independently made by Dufay in France and by White in England.
to the Year 1837. 47
< exceptions, he showed that they, and, generally, all
bodies, solid and liquid, could be electrified, if only the precaution were taken of first placing them on glass stands.
In repeating Gray's experiments with the pack- thread, he perceived that they succeeded better after wetting the line, and, with the aid of this fact, he was able to transmit the electric power along a cord of nearly 1300 feet, which he supported at intervals on glass tubes.
His discovery of the dual character of electricity was, like most of the other capital discoveries hitherto made, entirely due to chance. A piece of gold leaf having been repelled by an excited glass rod, Dufay pursued it with an excited rod of sealing-wax, ex- pecting that the effect would be the same. His asto- nishment, therefore, was great on seeing the gold leaf fly to the wax, and, on repeating the experiment, the same result invariably followed ; the gold leaf, when repelled by glass, was attracted by resin, and, when repelled by resin, was attracted by glass. Hence Dufay concluded that there were two distinct kinds of electricity, and, as one was produced from glass, and the other from resin, he distinguished them by the names vitreous and resinous.
In repeating Otto Guericke's experiments, Dufay discovered another general law, which enabled him to explain a number of observations that hitherto were obscure and puzzling. This law is, that an electrified
48 A History of Electric Telegraphy
body attracts those that are not so, and repels them as soon as they become electric by contact with itself. Thus, gold leaf is first attracted by the excited tube, and acquires an electricity by the contact, in conse- quence of which it is immediately repelled. Nor is it again attracted while it retains this electric quality; but, if now it chance to light on some other body, it straightway loses its electricity, and is then re-attracted by the tube, which, after having given it a new charge, repels it a second time, and so on, as long as the tube itself retains any electricity.*
The study of electricity was next taken up, in 1737, by Desaguliers, who, though born in France in 1683, early removed to England, and died in London in 1744. Two years before his death he published a Dissertation Concerning Electricity,'^ which is re- markable as being the first book on the subject in the English language. Desaguliers' investigations were mainly concerned with the relative conducting powers of various bodies, but he otherwise did good and useful work, by methodising the information that had already accumulated, and by improving in some
* Priestley's History of Electricity, pp. 40-50.
t As a reason for his engaging in this pursuit so late in life, Desa- guliers makes the curious assertion that he was debarred from doing so earlier by the peculiar temper of Stephen Gray, who would have abandoned the field entirely if he saw that anything was done in apparent opposition or rivalry to himself. — Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclofadia, verba Electricity, p. 415.
It is difficult to reconcile this passage with the following, which we extract from Desaguliers' Dissertation, p. 4^ : — " Indeed, a few electrical experiments, made by Mr. Gray and myself many years ago,
to the Year 1837. 49
important respects the nomenclature. Thus, the labours of Gray, Wheeler, Dufay, and himself, had shown that all matter was divisible into two great classes, these he now proposed to distinguish by the names Electrics, or bodies in which electricity could be excited by friction, and Non-electrics, or those in which it could not be excited, but which could receive it from an electric. He also first employed the words Conductor and Non-conductor in the same sense as they are used at the present day.
In the Philosophical Transactions, for 1739, vol. xli. p. 209, will be found his experiments on the trans- mission of electricity, which were made at H.R.H. the Prince of Wales's house at Cliefden, on April 15, 1738. " Having heard that electricity had been carried along a hempen string five or six hundred feet, but having only seen it done when the string was carried back- wards and forwards in a room, by silk supporters. Dr. D. wished to try it with a packthread stretched out at full length ; for which purpose, having joined a piece
are mentioned in the first volume of my Course of Experimental Philosophy, pp. 17-21."
The following lines by the poet Cawthorn depict the neglect and indigence into which Desaguliers fell in his old age : — "Can Britain » * * » *
* * permit the weeping muse to tell How poor neglected Desaguliers fell ? How he, who taught two gracious kings to view All Boyle ennobled, and all Bacon knew, Died in a cell, without a friend to save. Without a guinea, and without a grave ? "
The Vanity of Human Enjoyments, v. 147-54.
E
50 A History of Electric Telegraphy
of catgut to one end of a string, he fastened it to a door ; and having also tied another catgut to the other end of the string, he fastened it at the other end of the house. At the places where the packthread was joined to the catgut he left eighteen inches of the thread hanging down, and fastened a lignum vit<z handle of a burning-glass to one, while he applied a rubbed tube to the other. He made the electricity- run to the lignum vitce, but with some difficulty, which he attributed to the sizing, being an animal substance, that still adhered to the thread as it was new ; there- fore, he caused the thread to be wet with a sponge from one end to the other, to wash off the size ; then was the electricity from the tube communicated very soon and very strongly ; for the thread of trial was drawn by the lignum vitce at the distance of a foot.
"Afterwards, having joined more packthread to- gether, he made a string of 420 feet long, which he supported at intervals by pieces of catgut. The string was previously dipped in a pail of water, but great care was taken that the catgut should not be wet. Then he applied the rubbed tube at one end, while an assistant held the thread of trial near the handle at the other, whereupon it was strongly attracted, though the wind was very high, and blowed in the contrary direction to that in which the electricity ran.
" He first tried the experiment with the packthread dry, but then it would not succeed at that distance." * * Hutton's Phil. Trans. Abridged, vol. viii. p. 357.
to the Year 1837. 51
Up to this time, and until some years later, experi- ments on the transmission of electricity to a distance excited no attention outside a very narrow circle of scientific men, and even amongst these, they served only to illustrate the two great electrical properties of bodies — conduction and insulation — without evoking the slightest suspicion of their practical value. The whole subject of electricity now, however, began to attract general attention, especially amongst the Germans, and the first consequence was considerable improvement in the power and efficiency of electrical apparatus. About 1741, Professors Hansen, of Leipsic, and Boze, of Wittemburg, revived the use of the glass globe machine, first introduced many years before, by Newton and Hauksbee, but which, after their time, had been supplanted, to the great detriment of the science, by the glass tube and silk rubber of Gray. Boze also added, for the first time, the prime con- ductor, which consisted of an oblong cylinder of tin or iron. This was at first held in position by a man, who was insulated, by standing on cakes of resin, but it was subsequently suspended by silken cords, and, in order to facilitate the passage of the electricity, a number of linen strings were added, which served the purpose, though very imperfectly, of the metal points now employed. Professor Winkler, of Leipsic, next substituted a fixed woollen cushion in place of the hand for exciting the globe, and lastly, in 1742, Gordon, a Scotch Benedictine monk, and Professor of Natural
E 2
52 A History of Electric Telegraphy
Philosophy at Erfurt, substituted a glass cylinder for the globe, and otherwise so increased the power of the machine, that he was able to kill small birds at the end of an iron wire 200 ells (250 yards) long.*
These various improvements were followed, in October 1745, by the discovery of the Leyden Jar. This invention is one of the vexed questions of the science, being claimed, and perhaps with equal justice, for Von Kleist, dean of the Cathedral at Kamin, in Pomerania ; for Musschenbrock, the cele- brated professor of Leyden ; and for Cuneus, a rich burgess of that town. Von Kleist appears to have been first, in point of priority of publication ; but his account of the discovery was so obscurely worded, that it was impossible for some time to verify it. The following is an extract from his letter on the subject, which was addressed to Dr. Lieberkuhn, of Berlin, on the 4th November, 1745, and by him com- municated to the Berlin Academy : —
" When a nail, or a piece of thick brass wire, is put into a small apothecary's phial and electrified, remark- able effects follow ; but the phial must be very dry or warm. I commonly rub it over beforehand with a finger on which I put some pounded chalk. If a little mercury, or a few drops of spirit of wine, be put into it, the experiment succeeds the better. As soon as this phial and nail are removed from the electrifying glass, or the prime conductor to which it has been * Priestley's History of Electricity, pp. 64-67.
to the Year 1837. 53
exposed is taken away, it throws out a pencil of flame so strong, that with this burning instrument in my hand I have taken above sixty steps in walking about my room. When it is electrified strongly, I can take it into another room, and there fire spirits of wine with it.
" If, whilst it is electrifying, I put my finger, or a piece of gold which I hold in my hand, to the nail, I receive a shock which stuns my arms and shoulders. A tin tube, or a man, placed upon electrics, is elec- trified much more strongly by this means than in the common way. When I present this phial and nail to a tin tube which I have, fifteen feet long, nothing but experience can make a person believe how strongly it is electrified. Two thin glasses have been broken by the shock. It appears to me very extraordinary that when this phial and nail are in contact with either conducting or non-conducting matter, the strong shock does not follow. I have cemented it to wood, glass, sealing-wax, metal, &c., which I have elec- trified without any great effect. The human body, therefore, must contribute something to it. This opinion is confirmed by observing that, unless I hold the phial in my hand, I cannot fire spirits of wine with it."
In January 1746, Cuneus made the same disco- very, and apparently in the same accidental way. It having been observed by Musschenbrock and his col- leagues, Cuneus and Allamand, that electrified bodies
54 A History of Electric Telegraphy
speedily lost their virtue, which was supposed to be abstracted by the air itself, and by vapours and effluvia suspended in it, they imagined that if they could surround them with any insulating substance, so as to exclude the contact of the atmosphere, they could communicate a more intense electrical power, and could preserve that power for a longer time.* Water appeared one of the most convenient reci- pients for the electrical influence, and glass the most effectual and easy insulating envelope. It appeared, therefore, very obvious, that water enclosed in a glass bottle must retain the electricity given to it, and that by such means a greater charge or accumulation of electric force might be obtained than by any expe- dient before resorted to.
In the first experiments made in conformity with these views, no remarkable results were obtained. But it happened on one occasion that Cuneus held the glass bottle in his right hand, while the water contained in it communicated by a wire with the prime conductor of a powerful machine. When he considered that it had received a sufficient charge, he applied his left hand to the wire to disengage it
* In a paper read before the Royal Society in 1735, Stephen Gray has these curiously prophetic words: — "Though these effects of the fire and explosion of electricity communicated to a metallic rod are at present only minute, it is probable that in time there may be found out a way to collect a greater quantity of the electric fire, and consequently to increase the force of that power, which by several of these experiments, if we are permitted to compare small things with great, seems to be of the same nature with that of thunder and lightning." — Priestley, p. 54.
to the Year 1837. 55
from the conductor. He was instantly struck with a convulsive shock, which filled him with the utmost consternation, and made him let fall the flask. Muss- chenbrock and others quickly repeated the experi- ment, and with like results.*
In describing these, in a letter to R6aumur, Musschenbrock said he felt himself struck in the arms, shoulders, and breast, so that he lost his breath, and was two days before he recovered from the effects of the blow, and the terror. He added that he would not repeat the experiment for the whole kingdom of France. Boze, on the other hand, seems to have coveted electrical martyrdom, for he is said to have expressed a wish to die by the shock (the name by which this phenomenon was known), that the account of his death might furnish an article for the Memoirs of the French Academy. Allamand, the associate of Musschenbrock, took the shock from a common beer- glass, and lost the use of his breath for some minutes, and then felt so intense a pain along his right arm, that he feared permanent injury from it. Professor Winkler, on undergoing the experiment for the first time, suffered great convulsions, his blood was agitated, and fearing an ardent fever, he had recourse to cooling medicines. His wife, also, with a courage only equalled by her curiosity, twice subjected herself to the shock, and was so enfeebled thereby that she could hardly walk, and on trying it » Priestley's History of Electricity, pp. 75-8.
56 A History of Electric Telegraphy
again, a week later, it gave her bleeding at the nose.*
An account of these extraordinary effects soon got abroad, and spread over Europe with the rapidity almost of the spark itself. The experiments were repeated everywhere, and excited the wonder of all classes towards what was regarded as " a prodigy of nature and philosophy." Indeed, so popular did they become, that great numbers of impromptu electricians wandered over every part of Europe, and enriched themselves by gratifying the universal curiosity at so much per shock.
But as soon as these first feelings of wonder had abated, philosophers set themselves seriously to study the powers of the new machine ; and the circum- stances which influenced the force of the shock first engaged their attention.
Musschenbrock observed that if the glass were wet on the outer surface the success of the experiment was impaired. Dr. (afterwards Sir William) Watson, apothecary and physician, of London, next proved that, while the force of the shock was increased by diminishing the thickness of the glass, it was inde- pendent of the power of the machine by which the glass was charged.
* Priestley, pp. 78-9. It is no doubt to the "uncontrolled use of the imagination in science," that we must, in a great measure, attribute these first effects of an experiment with which electricians are now so familiar, and which every school boy and girl undergo nowadays from motives of curiosity or amusement.
to the Year 1837. 57
By further repeating and varying the experiment, Watson found that the force of the charge depended on the extent of the external surface of the glass in contact with the hand of the operator. It next oc- curred to Dr. Bevis that the hand might be efficient merely as a conductor of electricity, and in that case that the object might be more effectually and con- veniently attained by coating the exterior of the phial with sheet lead or tin-foil. This expedient was completely successful, and the phial, so far as related to its external surface, assumed its present form.
Another important step in the improvement of the Ley den jar was also due to the suggestion of Dr. Bevis. It appeared that the force of the charge increased with the magnitude of the jar, but not in proportion to the quantity of water it contained. It was conjectured that it might depend on the extent of the surface of glass in contact with water ; and that as water was considered to play the part merely of a conductor in the experiment, metal, which was a better conductor, would be at least equally effectual. Three phials were therefore procured and filled to the usual height with shot instead of water. A metallic communication was made between the shot contained in each of them, and the result was a charge of greatly augmented force. This was, in fact, the first electric battery.
Dr. Bevis now saw that the seat of the electric
58 A History of Electric Telegraphy
influence was the surface of contact of- the metal* and the glass, and rightly inferred that the form of a bottle or jar was not, in any way, connected with the principle of the experiment. He, therefore, took a common pane of glass, and having coated the opposite faces with tin-foil, to within an inch of the edge, obtained as strong a charge from it as from a phial having the same extent of coated surface. Dr. Watson being informed of this, coated large jars, made of thin glass, on the inside and outside with silver leaf, extending nearly to the top of the jars, the eifects of which fully corroborated the anticipations of Dr. Bevis, and established the law that the force of the charge was proportional to the extent of coated surface, and to the thinness of the glass.f
Experiments on the transmission and velocity of electricity, to which the new discovery lent a fresh and fascinating interest, were now resumed. Daniel Gralath, early in 1746, was the first to transmit the
* This question was very beautifully settled a year or two later by the celebrated Benjamin Franklin. He charged a jar, and then insulating it, removed the cork and the wire by which the electricity was con- veyed from the machine to the inside of the jar. On examining these he found them free from electricity. He next carefully decanted the water from the charged jar into another insulated vessel. On examining this it was also found to be free from electricity. Other water in its natural state was now introduced into the charged jar to replace that which had been decanted, and on placing one hand on the outside coating, and the other in the water, he received the shock as forcibly as if no change had been made in the jar since it was first charged. — Priestley, p. 144.
t Priestley, pp. 82-7.
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shock to a distance, which he did by discharging a battery, composed of several jars, through a chain of twenty persons, with outstretched arms. In May 1746, Joseph Franz, at Vienna, discharged a jar through 1 500 feet of iron, and, in the following July, Winkler charged, as well as discharged, a battery of three jars through an insulated wire, thirty ells long, and laid along the bank of the river Pleisse, whose waters formed the return half of the circuit.*
The Abbe Nollet, whose name is famous in the annals of this period, had meanwhile taken up the subject in France. He first, April 1746, transmitted the shock of a Ley den jar through a chain of 180 of the Royal Guards at Paris, and soon after performed a grander experiment of the same kind at the Car- thusian convent. By means of iron wires stretched between every two of the monks he formed a large circle of 5400 feet, through which he discharged his jars, with the result in every case that, at the moment of discharge, all the persons in the circuit gave a sudden spring, showing that the shock was felt by each at the same instant and to the same degree of intensity.
* Winkler had previously, in 1744, ascertained that the rapidity of an electric discharge was exceedingly great and comparable with the speed of lightning. He also, as the result of his experiments, concluded " that electricity could be transmitted to the ends of the earth, if a con- ducting body covered, or insulated, with silk be laid so far, it being only necessary to consider that there may be a certain amount of resistance to the transmission." — Thoughts on the Properties, Operations, and Cames of Electricity, Leipsic, 1744, pp. 146, 149.
6o A History of Electric Telegraphy
Lemonnier, the younger, also of Paris, employed still longer circuits composed of 2000 toises (12,780 feet) of iron wire laid along the ground, and, although some of the wire dragged upon wet grass, through hedges, and over newly-ploughed fields, the shock was in no way diminished, a fact which was then thought very surprising. In other experiments he made use of two large basins of water in the gardens of the Tuileries. In April 1746, in the court of the Carthusians, he so laid out two parallel wires of 5700 feet each, that all four ends were close together. Between one pair he placed a jar, and grasped the other extremities him- self ; then on causing the circuit to be completed, he could not distinguish any interval (so short was it) between the spark at the jar, and the shock through his arms.*
Upon receiving an account of these performances from Lemonnier, our own distinguished countryman, Watson, took up the inquiry, and pursued it so success- fully as not only to eclipse the achievements of his neighbours, but to gain for himself in after years the credit of being the first to propose an electric telegraph — an idea which, as we shall presently see, is quite erroneous.! Watson's experiments were very nume- rous, and were carried out on a grand scale, under the auspices of a committee of the Royal Society, con-
* Priestley, pp. 92-5.
t The suggestion has been claimed for Franklin and Cavendish, and with as little reason. It is time that writers on the telegraph ceased to bandy pretensions for which there is no foundation whatever.
to the Year 1837. 61
sisting of Mr. Folkes, Lord C. Cavendish, Dr. Bevis, and others. As preparing the way surely, though un- suspectedly, for the first suggestions of an electric telegraph, these investigations must ever possess a peculiar interest for telegraphists, and we therefore make no apology for presenting to our readers the following detailed account of them, for which we are indebted to Dr. Priestley's work, pp. 95-102.
Dr. Watson, who wrote a full account* of the labours of the Committee for the Royal Society, begins with observing (which was verified in all their experiments) that the electric shock is not, strictly speaking, con- ducted in the shortest manner possible, unless the bodies through which it passes conduct equally well. The circuit, he says, is always formed through the best conductors, though the length be ever so great — a most sagacious observation for the man and the time.
The first trials took place on the 14th and i8th July, 1747, on a wire carried from one side of the Thames to the other over old Westminster Bridge. One end of this wire communicated with the interior of a charged Ley den jar, the other was held by a person on the opposite bank of the river, who also held in his other hand an iron rod which he dipped into the water. Near the jar stood another person holding in one hand a wire communicating with the exterior
* An Account of the Experiments made by some Gentlemen of the Royal Society, &c., 8vo., London, 1748.
62 A History of Electric Telegraphy
coating of the jar, and in the other an iron rod. On dipping this into the water and thus completing the circuit for the discharge, the shock was instantly felt by both persons, but more strongly by him who stood near to the jar — because, as Watson rightly stated, part of the electricity went from the wire down the moist stonework of the bridge, thereby making several shorter circuits to the jar, but still all passing through the observer who stood near it.
The next attempt was to force the shock through a circuit of two miles at the New River, near London. This was accomplished on the 24th July at two places, at one of which the distance by land was 800 feet, and by water 2000 ; and at the other, 2800 feet of land and 8000 feet of water.
The disposition of the apparatus was similar to that at Westminster Bridge, and the results were equally satisfactory. On repeating the experiments, however, the rods, instead of being dipped into the water, were merely thrust into the ground about twenty feet from the water's edge. The effect was the same, as it was found that the shock was equally well transmitted. This occasioned a doubt whether in the former case the shock might not have been con- veyed through the ground between the two rods, instead of passing through all the windings of the river, and subsequent experiments showed that such was the case. Other experiments followed at the same place, on the 28th July, when for the first time
to the Year 1837. 63
the wire was supported in its whole length by dry sticks, and on the Sth August, at Highbury Barn, when it was found that dry ground conducted the electric virtue quite as well as water.
Finally, on the 14th August at Shooter's Hill, an experiment was made "to try whether the electric shock was perceptible at twice the distance to which it had yet been carried, in ground perfectly dry, and where no water was near ; and also to distinguish if possible its velocity as compared with that of sound." The circuit consisted of two miles of wire, and two miles of perfectly dry ground, but one shower of rain having fallen in the previous five weeks. The wire from the inner coating of the jar was 6732 feet long, and was supported all the way upon baked sticks, and that which communicated with the outer coating was similarly insulated, and was 3^68 feet long. The observers placed at the ends of these wires, two miles apart, were provided with stop watches with which to note the moment that they felt the shock. The result of a series of careful observations was that " as far as could be distinguished the time in which the electric matter performed its circuit might have been instan- taneous."
Not satisfied, apparently, with this result, the inquiry was resumed in the following year, when a series of trials was performed after the manner of Lemonnier's Carthusian experiment of 1746. On the Sth August, 1748, a circuit of two miles was formed at Shooter's
64 A History of Electric Telegraphy
Hill by several turnings of wire in the same field. The middle of this wire was led into the same room as the Leyden jar, and there Watson placed himself in the centre of the line, taking in each hand the ends of the wire, and noting the spark with his eye while he felt the shock in his arms. Under these circumstances the jar was discharged several times, but in no instance could the observer distinguish the slightest interval between the moments at which the spark was seen and the shock felt ; whereupon it was decided that the time occupied by the passage of electricity along 6138 feet of wire was altogether inappreciable.
In 1748 Benjamin Franklin performed his celebrated experiments across the Schuylkill at Philadelphia, and De Luc some months later (1749) across the Lake of Geneva. Franklin thus playfully refers to his experiments at the end of a letter to his friend and correspondent, Peter CoUinson, of London, dated Philadelphia, 1748 : —
" Chagrined a little that we have hitherto been able to produce nothing in this way of use to mankind, and the hot weather coming on, when electrical experi- ments are not so agreeable, 'tis proposed to put an end to them for this season, somewhat humorously, in a party of pleasure on the banks of the Skuylkil. Spirits at the same time are to be fired by a spark sent from side to side through the river, without any other conductor than the water — an experiment which we some time since performed, to the amazement of
to the Year 1837. 65
many. A turkey is to be killed for our dinner by the electrical shock, and roasted by the electrical jack, before a fire kindled by the electrified bottle, when the healths of all the famous electricians in England, Holland, France, and Germany are to be drank in electrified bumpers, under the discharge of guns from the electrical battery." *
As the words that we have italicised in this extract are apt to mislead, and indeed have misled, some writers into supposing that Franklin here describes an experi- ment akin to that of telegraphing without wires, from which so much was expected forty years ago, we quote the following details from vol. i. p. 202, of Franklin's Complete Works, London, 1806: — "Two iron rods, about three feet long, were planted just within the margin of the river, on the opposite sides. A thick piece of wire, with a small round knob at its end, was fixed on the top of one of the rods, bending downwards, so as to deliver commodiously the spark upon the surface of the spirit. A small wire, fastened by one end to the handle of the spoon containing the spirit, was carried across the river, and supported in the air by
* " An electric battery, famous because it was once owned and operated by Benjamin Franldin, and other distinguished scientific men, has been in constant use at Dartmouth College for years, and is now employed almost daily for class-room experiments in physics. It was at one time in the hands of the celebrated Dr. Priestley, the discoverer of hydrogen." — American newspaper. Another interesting relic — Faraday's first electrical machine — is still in vigorous action at the Royal Institution, and was used by Dr. Gladstone to illustrate his Christmas Lectures in 1874-5.
F
66 A History of Electric Telegraphy
the rope commonly used to hold by, in drawing ferry- boats over. The other end of this wire was tied round the coating of the bottle, which, being charged, the spark was delivered from the hook to the top of the rod standing in the water on that side. At the same instant the rod on the other side delivered a spark to the spoon and fired the spirit, the electric fire return- ing to the coating of the bottle, through the handle of the spoon, and the supported wire connected with them." The experiment was, therefore, precisely the same as that of Watson across the Thames, the only difference being in the words used to describe it. In the one case the discharge is said to go out by the water and return by the wire, and in the other to go out by the wire and return by the water.
Notwithstanding the singular suggestiveness of all these experiments, no one up to this time appears to have entertained the faintest suspicion of their appli- cability to telegraphic purposes ; or, indeed, to any useful purpose whatever. Thus Watson, in a letter to the Royal Society, says : — " If it should be asked to what useful purposes the effects of electricity can be applied, it may be answered that we are not yet so far advanced in these discoveries as to render them conducive to the service of mankind," but, he adds, "future philosophers may deduce from them uses extremely beneficial to society in general." This was in 1746, and with reference to his then recent ignition of spirits by the spark ; but even after his brilliant
to the Year 1837. 67
experiments in the following years, of which we have just given an account, he does not appear to have formed any more hopeful view. We also find the great Franklin, who was always in search of the practical in science, positively expressing his dis- appointment in the letter just quoted at being unable to find any useful application of electricity.*
* His suggestion of the lightning-conductor was not made until towards the end of July 1750. For this he was indebted to an experi- ment of his friend, Thomas Hopkinson. This philosopher electrified a small iron ball, to which he fixed a needle, in the hope that from the point, as from a focus, he would draw a stronger spark. Greatly sur- prised at finding that, instead of increasing the spark, the point dissi- pated it altogether, he mentioned his failure to Franklin. On repeating the experiment, the latter ascertained, not only that the ball could not be electrified when a needle was fastened to it, but that, when the needle was removed and the ball charged, the charge was silently and speedily withdrawn, when a point connected with the earth was pre- sented to it. Reflecting on this, . Franklin conceived the idea that pointed rods of iron fixed in the air might draw down the lightning without noise or danger. — Franklin's Complete Works, vol. i. p. 172, London, 1806.
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68 A History of Electric Telegraphy
CHAPTER III.
TELEGRAPHS BASED ON STATIC, OR FRICTIONAL, ELECTRICITY.
" Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are ? " — yob xxxviii. 35.
1753. — C. M.'s Telegraph.
The first distinct proposal to employ electricity for the transmission of intelligence, of which we have any record, is that contained in a letter printed in the number of the Scots' Magazine, Edinburgh, for February 17, 1753. As this is one of the most in- teresting documents to be found in the whole history of telegraphy, we will quote it in extenso for the benefit of our readers : —
To the Author of the Scots' Magazine.
" Renfrew, Feb. i, 1753. " Sir, — It is well known to all who are conversant in electrical experiments, that the electric power may be propagated along a small wire, from one place to another, without being sensibly abated by the length of its progress. Let, then, a set of wires, equal in number to the letters of the alphabet, be extended horizontally between two given places, parallel to one
to the Year 1837. ^9
another, and each of them about an inch distant from that next to it. At every twenty yards' end, let them be fixed in glass, or jeweller's cement, to some firm body, both to prevent them from touching the earth, or any other non-electric, and from breaking by their own gravity. Let the electric gun-barrel be placed at right angles with the extremities of the wires, and about an inch below them. Also let the wires be fij^d in a solid piece of glass, at six inches from the end ; and let that part of them which reaches from the glass to the machine have sufficient spring and stiffness to recover its situation after having been brought in contact with the barrel. Close by the supporting glass, let a ball be suspended from every wire ; and about a sixth or an eighth of an inch below the balls, place the letters of the alphabet, marked on bits of paper, or any other substance that may be light enough to rise to the electrified ball ; and at the same time let it be so contrived, that each of them may re- assume its proper place when dropt.*
"All things constructed as above, and the minute previously fixed, I begin the conversation with my distant friend in this manner. Having set the electrical machine a-going as in ordinary experiments, suppose I am to pronounce the word Sir ; with a piece of glass, or any other electric per se, I strike the wire S,
* It will be observed that in this and most other systems based upon common, or frictional, electricity, the authors constantly, although often unknowingly, used the earth circuit.
^o A History of Electric Telegraphy
so as to bring it in contact wtth the barrel, then i, then r, alj in the same way ; and my correspondent, almost in the same instant, observes these several characters rise in order to the electrified balls at his end of the wires. Thus I spell away as long as I think fit ; and my correspondent, for the sake of memory, writes the characters as they rise, and may join and read them afterwards as often as he inclines. Upon a signal given, or from choice, I stop the machine ; and, taking up the pen in my turn, I write down whatever my friend at the other end strikes out.
" If anybody should think this way tiresome, let him, instead of the balls, suspend a range of bells from the roof, equal in number to the letters of the alphabet ; gradually decreasing in size from the bell A to Z ; and from the horizontal wires, let there be another set reaching to the several bells ; one, viz., from the horizontal wire A to the bell A, another from the horizontal wire B to the bell B, &c. Then let him who begins the discourse bring the wires in contact with the barrel, as before ; and the electrical spark, breaking on bells of different size, will inform his correspondent by the sound what wires have been touched. And thus, by some practice, they may come to understand the language of the chimes in whole words, without being put to the trouble of noting down every letter.
" The same thing may be otherwise effected. Let the balls be suspended over the characters as before.
to the Year 1837. 71
but instead of bringing the ends of the horizontal wires in contact with the barrel, let a second set reach from the electrified cake, so as to be in contact with the horizontal ones ; and let it be so contrived, at the same time, that any of them may be removed from its corresponding horizontal by the slightest touch, and may bring itself again into contact when left at liberty. This may be done by the help of a small spring and slider, or twenty other methods, which the least ingenuity will discover. In this way the characters will always adhere to the balls, excepting when any one of the secondaries is removed from contact with its horizontal ; and then the letter at the other end of the horizontal will immediately drop from its ball. But I mention this only by way of variety.
" Some may, perhaps, think that although the elec- tric fire has not been observed to diminish sensibly in its progress through any length of wire that has been tried hitherto, yet as that has never exceeded some thirty, or forty, yards, it may be reasonably supposed that in a far greater length it would be remarkably diminished, and probably would be entirely drained off in a few miles by the surrounding air. To prevent the objection, and save longer argument, lay over the wires from one end to the other with a thin coat of jeweller's cement. This may be done for a trifle of additional expense, and, as it is an electric per se, will effectually secure any part of the fire from mixing with the atmosphere. — I am, &c., " C. M."
72 A History of Electric Telegraphy
From the concluding paragraph it is evident that the writer was not acquainted with Watson's experi- ments, as detailed in our last chapter, else he would not have suggested insulating the wires, from end to end, with jeweller's cement, and, probably, not even have noticed the objection at all. His suggestions of reading by sound of differently-toned bells, and of keeping his wires charged with electricity, and indica- ting the signals by discharge, are very ingenious, and deserve to be remembered to his credit in these days of their realisation. The former plan is familiar to us in Bright's Acoustic, or Bell, telegraph of 1855, while the latter was, as we shall presently see, employed by Ronalds in 1816, and is realised to perfection in the method now used in signalling through all long cables.
Unfortunately, little, or nothing, is known of C. M. An inquiry as to his identity was first started by " Inquirendo," Glasgow, in Notes and Queries, for October 15, 1853; then by George Blair, also of Glasgow, in the Glasgow Reformers' Gazette, for November 1853, in which he, for the first time, repub- lished C. M.'s letter ; and, lastly, by Sir David Brew- ster, in the Glasgow Commonwealth, for January 21, 1854. Nothing, however, came of the inquiry for a long time, and all hopes of solving the question were abandoned, when, on December 8, 1858, the following letter appeared : —
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" To the Editor of the Commonwealth.
" 14S, Great Eastern Road.
" Sir, — I have not heard that a name has yet been proposed for the C. M. that wrote to the Scots' Maga- zine last century from Renfrew, giving some hints about the electric telegraph.
" I send you what follows, as I think it gives some probability to C. M. being Charles Marshall.
" In our house was a copy of Knox's History of the Reformation, published in Paisley, in 1791. My uncle James's name is in the list of subscribers in Renfrew. Anent this my mother spoke as follows : — ' There was a very clever man living in Paisley at that tiqie, that had formerly lived in Renfrew. He asked my uncle, as they were acquainted, to canvass for subscribers in Renfrew. The said clever man could light a room with coal reek, and make lightning speak and write upon the wall,' &c.
"That this was the C. M. of the electric telegraph there can, I think, be no doubt.
" Now, it is probable that the man that solicited my uncle to canvass for subscribers subscribed himself; and in Well Meadow, Paisley, I find the name Charles Marshall, and this is the only name in the list of 1000 names that answers the initials C. M. My list, how- ever, is not complete for Glasgow.
" Peradventure some one belonging to Paisley may have somewhat to say of Charles Marshall.
"Alex. Dick."
74 A History of Electric Telegraphy
To this letter were appended the following remarks by Sir David Brewster, to whom the editor appears to have submitted it prior to publication : — " That Charles Marshall might have been the inventor, had we known nothing more than that he was a resident in Renfrew about the time when the letter was sent to the Scots' Magazine, was very probable ; but when we add to this probability the fact that Charles Marshall was a clever man, and that he was known as a person who could make lightning speak and write upon the wall, and who could also light a room with coal reek (smoke), we can hardly doubt that he was the C. M. who invented the electric telegraph, and that he is entitled to the additional honour of having first invented and used gas from coal." *
Commenting on this correspondence, in Notes and Queries, for July 14, i860, George Blair says : — "That the Charles Marshall who resided at Well Meadows, Paisley, in 1791, was not the C. M. of the Scots' Maga- zine, and, therefore, not the inventor of the electric telegraph, I succeeded in ascertaining positively about a year ago, on the highest possible authority. Through the kindness of a venerable friend in Paisley, I traced out the fact that a Charles Marshall, who once resided in the Well Meadows, had come from Aberdeen ; and that a son of his, a clergyman, was still living. Discovering the address of this gentleman, I applied
* These letters, copied from the Commonwealth, are reprinted in the Engineer, for Dec. 24, 1858, p. 484.
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td him for information ; and he states in his reply that he had no doubt his father was the Charles Marshall who appears in Mr. Dick's list ; but that he could not be the C. M. of the Scots' Magazine.
"At the time when C. M.'s letter was first dis- interred, the most diligent search was made by the schoolmaster of Renfrew, who is also session-clerk, not only in the records of the kirk-session, but also among the old people of the parish, without a shadow of success ; and, strange as it may appear, the name of C. M. remains at the present moment as great a mystery as that of Junius."
Whether Sir David Brewster was aware of these fresh facts we cannot say, but certain it is that, in October 1859, he accepted the evidence in favour of C. M. being a Charles Morrison, with as much warmth, and, we fear, as much haste, as he had done that for Charles Marshall in the previous December. At p. 207 of The Home Life of Sir David Brewster (Edinburgh, 1869), Mrs. Gordon says: — "After a good deal of correspondence on the subject. Sir David Brewster gave up all hope of discovering the name of the inventor, and it was not until 1859 that he had the great pleasure of solving the mystery in the follow- ing manner : — He received from Mr. Loudon, of Port Glasgow, a letter, dated 31st October, 1859, stating that, while reading the article in the North British
76 A History of Electric Telegraphy
Review, his attention was arrested by the letter of C. M., and having mentioned the fact to Mr. Forman, a friend then living with him, he told him that he could solve the mystery regarding these initials. Mr. Forman recollects distinctly having read a letter, dated 1750, and addressed by his grandfather, a farmer, near Stirling, to Miss Margaret Winsgate, residing at Craigengilt, near Denny (to whom he was subse- quently married), referring to a gentleman in Renfrew of the name of Charles Morrison, who transmitted messages along wires by means of electricity, and who was a native of Greenock, and bred a surgeon. Mr. Forman also states that he was connected with the tobacco trade in Glasgow, that he was regarded by the people in Renfrew as a sort of wizard, and that he was obliged, or found it convenient, to leave Ren- frew and settle in Virginia, where he died. Mr. Forman also recollects reading a letter in the hand- writing of Charles Morrison, addressed to Mr. Forman, his grandfather, and dated 2Sth September, 1752, giving an account of his experiments, and stating that he had sent an account of them to Sir Hans Sloane, the President of the Royal Society of London, who had encouraged him to perfect his experiments, and to whom he had promised to publish an account of what he had done. In this letter Mr. Morrison stated that, as he was likely to be ridiculed by many of his acquaintances, he would publish his paper in the Scots^ Magazine only with his initials."
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How far this statement may be credited we will not undertake to say ; we would, however, just point out that Sir Hans Sloane resigned the presidentship of the Royal Society in 1741, and lived in strict retirement at Chelsea until his death, which occurred on January 11, 1752, at the advanced age of ninety- two years. It is not likely, therefore, that he would have received, or written, any letters of the above- mentioned nature in the last days of his life. At any rate, a careful search through his papers, which we have instituted in the British Museum and the Royal Society, has failed to discover any.
1767. — Bozolus's Telegraph.
Joseph Bozolus, a Jesuit and lecturer on natural philosophy in the College at Rome, was the next to suggest an electric telegraph, and one in which the spark was the active principle. This must have been some time anterior to 1767, as we find it familiarly described in a Latin poem,* published in that year.
His proposition was to lay underground two (.' in- sulated) wires between the communicating stations, which may be any distance apart. At both stations the ends of the wires were to be brought close together, without touching, so as to facilitate the passage of a spark. When, under these circumstances, at one end, the inner coating of a charged plate, or jar, was con-
* Electricorum, by Josephus Marianus Parthenius («'. e., G. M. Mazzo- lari), libri vi., 8vo., Romse, 1767.
78 A History of Electric Telegraphy
nected to one wire, and the outer coating to the other, the discharge would take place through the wires, and manifest itself, at the break, at the distant end, in the form of a spark. An alphabet of such sparks, Bozolus says, could be arranged with a friend without any difficulty, and a means of communication be thus contrived, which, as tolerably easy, he leaves to each one's judgment to devise and settle in detail.
Bozolus appears to have been a man of varied acquirements. As a sort of diversion from more serious studies, he undertook an Italian translation of the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, which Mazzolari, himself no mean poet, praises very highly.
As the Electricorum is very scarce, and, therefore, not easily accessible, we present our readers with a faithful transcript of the verses descriptive of the telegraph, which we have extracted from a copy of the work, in the British Museum.
" Quid dicam, extrema pendentis parte catenae, Qui palmam objecit, confestim flamma reluxit, Tenviaque arguto strepueruut sibila vento ? , Et qui continuos secum prius ordine longo Disposuit globulos ; turn flammam excivit, et ignem A primo insinuans sellers traduxit ad imum ? Atque hie arte quidem multa omniginseque Minerva Instructus studiis vitro impiger instat, et usque Extundit visenda novis spectacula formis. Quid ? quod et elicitas vario discrimine ilammas Nunquam tentatos idem detorquet ad usus ; Insuetisque notis absentem affatur amicum. Quippe duo a nexa in longum deducta catena Aenea fila trahit ; spatium distantia amici Definit certum, verum, quo lumina fallat
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Spectantum, et miram quo callidus occulat artem, Fila solo condit penitus defossa sub imo, Sic tamen ; ut capita emergant turn denique ; signa Conscius opperiens condicta ubi servat amicus. Ipse autem interea vitri revolubilis orbem De more exagitans fluctum derivat ; et inde, Qua duo se extrema respectant aenea parte, Attactum citra et praescripto limite, fila ; Composite tot scintillas educit, ad usum Quot talem elicitis opus est ; quae singula nempe Designent elementa ; quibus in verba coactis Sensa animi pateant, certa et sententia constet. Atque his indiciis, fidaque interprete flamma Absens absentem dictis compellat amicum."
Lib. i. pp. 32-35.
1773. — Odier's Telegraph.
The idea of an electric telegraph appears next to have occurred to Louis Odier, a distinguished phy- sician of Geneva, who thus wrote, in 1773, to a lady of his acquaintance :—
" I shall amuse you, perhaps, in telling you that I have in my head certain experiments by which to enter into conversation with the emperor of Mogol, or of China, the English, the French, or any other people of Europe, in a way that, without incon- veniencing yourself, you may intercommunicate all that you wish, at a distance of four or five thousand leagues in less than half an hour ! Will that suffice you for glory .' There is nothing more real. What- ever be the course of those experiments, they must necessarily lead to some grand discovery ; but I have not the courage to undertake them this winter. What
8o A History of Electric Telegraphy
gave me the idea was a word which I heard spoken casually the other day at Sir John Pringle's table, where I had the pleasure of dining with Franklin, Priestley, and other great geniuses." *
Although, according to Professor Maunoir, Odier was about this time devoting much attentibn to elec- tricity, we do not find that he ever attempted to carry out his telegraphic idea.
1777. — Voltds {so-called) Telegraph. At p. 243, vol. i., of The Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers, we find the following letter : —
" To the Secretary of the Society of Telegraph Engineers.
" Battle, Sussex, July 4th, 1872.
"Sir, — I have not met with any statement in English histories, or other English treatises, on the Electric Telegraph, relative to Volta's proposed Electric Telegraph.
" Professor L. Magrini, member of a committee appointed to examine and report upon Volta's library, manuscripts, and instruments, published a paper in the Atti del Reale Istituto Lombardo, vol. ii., entitled, Notizie, Biografiche e Scientifiche su Alessandro Volta.
* Chambers's Papers for ike People, 1851, Art. Electric Communica- tions, p. 6. Also Dodd's Railways, Steamers, and Telegraphs, London and Edinburgh, 1867, p. 226. Odier took out his degrees at Edinburgh, where he might well have read, or heard, of C. M.'s letter in the Scots' Magazine of 1753.
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This paper was read at various times, in 1861, at the said institute. It contains a paragraph of which the following is a literal translation : —
"'An autograph manuscript, dated Como, ijth April, 1777, which is suspected (and the suspicion was confirmed by one of the sons of Volta) to have been addressed to Professor Barletti, contains various ex- periments on his pistols, and the singular proposition, very remarkable for that time, of transmitting signals by means of ordinary electricity. Besides the figure, there are particulars conducive to its practical appli- cation.
"'This letter is of the greatest interest for the history of the science, inasmuch as it indicates the first bold and certain step in the invention and institution of the electric telegraph.'
"Although our Charles Marshall, of Renfrew, in 1753, and others, forestalled this proposition, it is interesting, as proving that the in re electrica Princeps believed in the efficiency of frictional electricity for the purpose.
" I am. Sir, your obedient servant,
" Francis Ronalds.^ " G. E. Preece, Esq."
Now, although, as Ronalds says, and as we here see, Volta was not the first to propose an electric telegraph, still we were delighted to learn, on such apparently good authority, that the great Italian
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82 A History of Electric Telegraphy
pRlosopher had turned his mind to telegraphy at all, and we eagerly sought for some particulars of his plan. After much trouble we succeeded in getting a copy of the letter referred to by Professor Magrini, and great was our disappointment to find that it con- tained nothing more than the suggestion of an experi- ment which was carried out (though on a lesser scale) thirty years before by Lemonnier, Watson, Franklin, De Luc, and others. In order that the reader may be able to form his own opinion on this point, we give Volta's original letter, as well as a translation, which we have made from the French of C^sar Cantu, the distinguished Italian historian.* Volta says : —
"Quante belle idee di sperienze sorprendenti mi van ribollendo in testa, eseguibili con questo strata- gemma di mandare la scintilla elettrica a far lo sbaro della pistola a qualsivoglia distanza e in qualsivoglia direzione e posizione ! Invece del colombino che va ad appiccar I'incendio alia macchina di fuochi artificiali, io vi mandero du qualunque sito anche non diretto la scintilla elettrica, che col mezzo della pistola aggius- tata al sito della pianta artifiziale, vi metter^ fuoco. Sentite. Io non so a quanti miglia un fil di ferro, tirato sul suolo dei campi o della strada, che in fine si ripiegasse indietro, o incontrasse un canal d'acqua di ritorno, condurebbe giusta il sentier segnato la scin- tilla commovente. Ma prevegga che un lunghissimo
* See /> Correspondant, a French scientific periodical, for August 1867, p. 1059, also Les Mondes, for December 5, 1867, p. 561.
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viaggio, d^ tratti di terra molto bagnati, o delle acque scorrenti stabili rebbero troppo presso una communi- cazione e quioi devierebbe il corso del fuoco elettrico, spiccato dall uncino della caraffa per ricondursi al fondo. Ma se il fil di ferro fosse sostenuto alto da terra da pali di legno qua e li piantati, ex. gr., da Como fine a Milane ; e quivi interrotto solamente dalla una pistola, continuasse e venisse in fine a pescare nel canale naviglio, continua col mio lago di Comd ; non credo impossibile de far lo sbaro della pistola a Milano con una buona boccia di Leyden, da me scaricata in Como."
"The more I reflect, the more I see the beautiful experiments that can be made by means of the spark in exploding the electric pistol at any distance. An iron wire, stretched along the fields, or roads, for I know not how many miles, could . conduct the spark. As, however, in long distances moist earth and water- courses would be encountered, which would draw off the electric fire, the wire may be supported on posts placed at regular intervals, say from Como to Milan. At the latter place its continuity would be interrupted only by my electric pistol, from which it would pass into the canal, which communicates with my lake at Como. In this case I do not believe it impossible to explode my pistol at Milan when I discharge a powerful Leyden jar at Como " [through the wire].
" According to this document," says Cantu, " it is incontestable that Volta had in mind an electric
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84 A History of Electric Telegraphy
telegraph, half a century before those [alluding to Ampfere] who have been proclaimed its inventors. The basis of this astonishing discovery lies in the possibility of transmitting to a great distance the electric virtue, and there causing it to manifest itself in signs. Now this is what Volta had clearly perceived, and, further, he indicated a plan, which is to-day universal, of insulating the conducting wire on posts." * Perceiving a fact, or principle, and applying it, are two very different things. Gray, Dufay, Watson, and all those who made experiments on the transmission of elec- tricity long before Volta, perceived the same fact as he did, and, like him, missed its application. To say then, as Professor Magrini does, that Volta's letter indicates the first bold and certain step in the inven- tion and institution of the electric telegraph is to
* Le Correspondant, p. 1060. In the course of a somewhat effusive letter on Italy's claim to the discovery of the electric telegraph, Cantu relates the following interesting particulars. The apartments which Volta occupied at Come, were, for a time, preserved in the state in which he left them at his death (March 5, 1827). There one could see his books, papers, machines, even his tobacco pouch, spectacles, decora- tions, and cane ; in short, everything that becomes a sacred relic when death has removed him who used it. Amongst the pieces of apparatus, were aU those which he had himself invented, including the first pile, and that which he took to Paris, in 180 1, when invited by Napoleon to repeat his experiments before the Institute.
In consequence of the pecuniary embarrassments of Volta's .sons, these precious relics were in danger of being dispersed, when the Academy of Sciences of Lombardy stepped in, and, while it assisted the sons, honoured the father. The whole collection was purchased for loo,cxx3 livres, and lodged in a chamber of the palace of Breraat Milan, where, under the appellation of Cimeli di Volta, it is preserved with reverent care.
to the Year 1837. 85
assign to it a meaning which it was never, we believe, intended to convey ; and we are the more confirmed in this opinion by the fact that, although Volta lived to the year 1827, and must have heard of the numerous telegraphic proposals made up to that time, he never claimed to have done anything in that way himself.
1782. — Anonymous Telegraph.
The next proposal, which is an exceedingly inter- esting one, is contained in an anonymous letter to \}ait y ournal de Paris, No. 150, for May 30, 1782, a translation of which we append : —
" To the Authors of the Journal.
" A way of establishing a communication between two very distant places has been proposed to me, and those of your readers who care for this kind of scientific amusement will not, perhaps, be angry with me for telling them what it is.
" Let there be two gilt iron wires put underground in separate wooden tubes filled in with resin, and let each wire terminate in a knob. Between one pair of knobs, connect a letter formed of metallic [tin-foil] strips after the fashion of those electrical toys, called ' spangled panes ' ; if, now, at the other end we touch the inside of a Ley den jar to one knob, and the out- side to the other, so as to discharge the jar through the wires, the letter will be at the same instant illuminated.
86 A History of Electric Telegraphy
"Thus, with twenty-four such pairs, one could quickly spell all that was desired, it being only requisite to have a sufficient number of charged Leyden jars always ready.
" As it would not be necessary to make the letters very luminous, a slight ■ indication being sufficient, complete darkness would not be required for the perception of the characters, and feebly charged jars would, therefore, suffice, which would greatly facilitate matters. The letters may even be suppressed, and then there would be one instrument common to the twenty-four systems (pairs) of wires \sic\.
" These means could be simplified by having only five pairs of wires, and attaching a character, or letter, to each of their combinations, i i°, 2 2°, * * 5 5°; 1 i", and 2 2°, I 1°, and 33°; * * i i", 2 2° and 3 3° ; and so on, which would make thirty-one characters ; six pairs of wires would, in the same way, yield sixty-three, and thus one could arrive at a sort of tachygraphy, or fast writing, one character (or signal) sufficing for a whole word, or phrase, as may be previously agreed upon. There would be some difficulty, however, in discharging at exactly the same instant several (separate) jars through as many separate pairs. One might also use successive combinations of these pairs, 2 to 2, 3 to 3, and so on, in which way five pairs would give 125 signals, and six 216, which would be very fast writing indeed.
" The wooden tubes might, very probably, be un-
to the Year 1837. 87
necessary ; but in view of accidents, such as fractures, it would always be safer to employ them.
" One could use simple electricity \i. e., direct from the machine], and so greatly simplify the apparatus, but as the superficial area of a great length of wire, even when a very fine one was used, would be con- siderable, this plan would necessitate very powerful machines. In either method, however, the object could easily be obtained by using very large electro- phoroi.
" It would be necessary to give each correspondent a means of notifying that he wished to communicate, to prevent constant watching and cross signalling. For this an electric bell would suffice, and by agree- ing beforehand that one stroke shall mean ' I will call you up in 15 minutes,' two strokes ' I am all attention,' &c., all confusion would be avoided.
"As this letter is only intended for those who amuse themselves with physics, they can easily supply for themselves all the details that I have omitted. " I have the honour to be, &c."
This letter is copied, almost verbatim, in Le Mercure de France, for June 8, 1782, and is also embodied in a letter, dated June S, 1782,* where the writer
* In Metra's Correspondance Secrite, Sec, Londres, 1788, vol. xiii. p., 84. Mr. Aylmer, to whom we are indebted for the copy of this letter which appeared in Ze Mercure de France, tells us that the Comte du Moncel attributes it to Le Sage, but we shall presently see reasons for doubting this.
88 A History of Electric Telegraphy
prefaces it with the following remarks : " We have Linguet once more installed in the career in which his labours have been so disagreeably interrupted. His project of an easy communication between two very distant places appears to be only the dream of some pleasant trifler. It is, however, not new, and would only imperfectly accomplish its object ; but still there may be some good in it."
In these remarks Metra somewhat mixes his facts. There is no more authority for the statement that Linguet was the writer than that he, at this time, was engaged on experiments on some kind of a luminous telegraph, which he planned while a prisoner in the Bastille, and in exchange for which he is popularly, though erroneously, supposed to have received his liberty. On the other hand, we have positive proof that he was not the writer, firstly, in the opening sentence of the letter itself, and secondly, in the following passage from his Mimoires sur la Bastille: — "I will one day make known my ideas on this subject [of signalling by means of light]. The invention will certainly admit of being greatly improved, as I have no doubt it will be. I am persuaded that in time it will become the most useful instrument of commerce, and all correspondence of that kind ; just as electricity will be the most powerful agent of medicine ; and as the fire-pump will be the principle of all mechanic processes which require, or are to communicate, great force" (Note 13).
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1782. — Le Sagis Telegraph.
On seeing these accounts, George Louis Le Sage,* a savant of French extraction, residing at Geneva, |)ublished a method somewhat similar to C. M.'s, in a letter, dated June 22, 1782, and addressed to his friend, M. Prevost, at Berlin.
He writes : " I am going to entertain you with one of my old discoveries, which I see has just been found out by others, at least, up to a certain point. It is a ready and swift method of correspondence between two distant places by means of electricity, which occurred to me thirty, or thirty-five, years ago, and which I then reduced to a simple system, far more practicable than the form with which the new inventor has endowed it.
" I have often spoken of it to one or two persons,t but I see no reason for supposing that the new inventor has drawn his ideas from these conversations. The thing is so natural that, to discover it, it is only necessary that one should be in search of some means of very rapid correspondence ; and people have, on
* " Upon the present venerable and learned M. le Sage of Geneva devolved, in a great measure, the education of Lord Mahon, who is frequently heard to mention the name of his preceptor with considerable respect. He even goes so far as to pronounce M. le Sage the most learned man in Europe." Vide Life of Earl Stanhope, in Public Characters o/'iSoo-iSoi, London, 1801, p. 88.
t In Le Journal des Sgavans, 4to., Paris, 1782 (for Sept., p. 637), this extract is prefaced thus : — " II y a trente ans qu'il en parla, et une personne i qui il en fit part, offre de I'attester ; mais ceux qui con- noissent la sagacity et la candeur de ce digne citoyen, ne formeront a cet igard aucun doute."
90 A History of Electric Telegraphy
occasion, turned their minds to this subject * • • •, as, for example, Mr. Lingfuet.
" But it is time to tell you briefly in what my plan consisted. One can imagine a subterranean tube, of glazed earthenware, the inside of which is divided, at every fathom's length, by diaphragms, or partitions, of glazed earthenware, or of glass, pierced by twenty-four holes, so as to give passage to as many brass wires, which could in this way be supported and kept apart. At each of the extremities of this tube, the twenty-four wires are arranged horizontally, like the keys of a harpsichord, each wire having suspended above it a letter of the alphabet, while immediately underneath, on a table, are pieces of gold leaf, or other bodies that can be as easily attracted, and are, at the same time, easily visible.
" He, who wishes to signal anything, shall touch the ends of the wires with an excited glass tube, according to the order of the letters composing the words ; while his correspondent writes down the characters under which he sees the little gold leaves play. The other details are easily supplied."
Le Sage had an idea of offering his invention to Frederick the Great, and drew up an introductory note as follows : —
" To the King of Prussia.
" Sire, — My little fortune is not only sufficient for all my wants, but even for all my tastes — except one,
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viz., that of contributing to the wants and tastes of others ; and this desire all the monarchs of the world, united, could not enable me to fully satisfy. It is not, then, to a patron who can give much, that I take the liberty of dedicating the following discovery, but to a patron who can do much with it, and who can judge for himself of its utility without having to refer it to his advisers." *
Whether he ever carried out this idea or not is difficult to say, but it is certain that his plan was never practically tried, and, like so many of its class, was soon forgotten.
1787. — LomoncTs Telegraph.
The next plan that we have to notice was a decided improvement, and had an actual existence, though on a very small scale. Seeing, no doubt, the difficulty and expense of using many wires, Lomond of Paris reduced, at one sweep, the number to. one, and thus produced a really serviceable telegraph. Arthur Young, the diligent writer on natural and industrial resources, saw this apparatus in action during his first visit to Paris, and thus describes it in his journal, under date October 16, 1787 : —
* See Notice de la vie et des krits de George-Louis Le Sage de Genhte, &c., par Pierre Prevost, 8vo., Geneve, 1805, pp. 176-7. All writers on the Electric Telegraph, copying Moigno (Traiii de Tiligraphie £lectrigue, Paris, 1849 and 1852), say that Le Sage actually established his telegraph at Geneva in 1774 — an assertion for which we have not been able to find any authority.
92 A History of Electric Telegraphy
" In the evening to M. Lomond, a very ingenious and inventive mechanic, who has made an improve- ment of the jenny for spinning cotton ; common machines are said to make too hard a thread for certain fabrics, but this forms it loose and spongy. In electricity he has made a remarkable discovery. You write two or three words on a paper ; he takes it with him into a room and turns a machine enclosed in a cylindrical case, at the top of which is an electro- meter, a small fine pith-ball* ; a wire connects with a similar cylinder and electrometer in a distant apart- ment, and his wife, by remarking the corresponding motions of the ball, writes down the words they indicate, from which it appears that he has formed an alphabet of motions. As the length of the wire makes no difference in the effect, a correspondence might be carried on at any distance ; within and without a besieged town for instance, or for a purpose much more worthy, and a thousand times more harm- less— between two lovers prohibited, or prevented, from any better connection. Whatever the use may
* Soon after the discovery of the Leyden jar the necessity of some sufiicient indicator of the presence and power of electricity began to be felt, and after some clumsy attempts at an electrometer by Gralath, EUicott, and others, the Abb^ Nollet adopted the simple expedient of suspending two threads, which when electrified would separate by their mutual repulsion. Waitz hung little leaden pellets from the threads for greater steadiness, and Canton, in 1753, improved upon this by substi- tuting two pith balls suspended in contact by fine wires — a contrivance which is used to this day. The electrometer mentioned in the text was of the kind known as the quadrant electrometer, introduced by Henley in 1772.
to the Year 1837. 93
be, the invention is beautiful. Mons. Lomond has made many other curious machines, all the entire work of his own hands. Mechanical invention seems to be in him a natural propensity."*
As in all systems where the signals were indicated by electroscopes, or electrometers, their action would continue so long as the charge communicated to the wires lasted, and, as during this time it would not be possible to make another signal, the authors must in some way have discharged the wires after every signal, so as to allow the balls, gold leaves, or other indicators, to resume their normal position. This they might have done, either by touching the wires with the finger after the signal had been noted, or by making the indicators themselves strike against some body that would convey their charges to earth. But, probably, there was no need for any such stratagem, as the insulation of the wires would be so imperfect, and the speed of signalling so slow, that the inconvenience would not have been felt.
1790. — Chappe's Telegraph.
Most of our readers have, doubtless, heard of Claude Chappe's Semaphore, or Optico-mechanical Telegraph, which, in one form or another (for, like all successful inventions, it had many imitators), did such good service in the first half of this century. Few, however,
* Travels during the years 1787, 1788, and 1789, &=c., in the Kingdom of France, Dublin, 1793, vol. i. p. 135.
94 -^ History of Electric Telegraphy
are aware that, before deciding on this form of instru- ment, he essayed the employment of electricity for telegraphic purposes.
Reserving a full account of Claude Chappe's life and works for its proper place in our General History of Telegraphy, which we hope soon to publish, we need only concern ourselves here with a brief refer- ence to his early experiments with electricity.
In 1790, he conceived the idea of a telegraph. He first employed two clocks, marking seconds, in combi- nation with sound signals, which were produced by striking on that homely utensil, a stewpan {casserole). Round the seconds dials were marked off equal spaces corresponding to the numerals i to 9, and the cipher o. The clocks being so regulated that the second hands moved in unison, pointing to the same figures at the same instant, it is clear that, in order to indicate any particular figure, Chappe had only to strike the stewpan the moment the hand of his dial entered the space occupied by that figure ; his correspondent, hearing the sound, must necessarily note the same symbol ; and so, successive figures, or groups of figures, answering to words and phrases in a vocabu- lary, could be indicated with great ease and rapidity.
But as sound travels so comparatively slowly, it would in long distances lag behind, and indicate, it may be, only an A, or B, when an E, or G, was intended. Under these circumstances it was but natural that Chappe should bethink himself of elec-
to the Year 1837. 95
tricity, of which he was a diligent student, and on which he had just communicated a series of papers to the Journal de Physique (which, by the way, obtained his election as a member of the Philomathic Society).
He erected insulated wires for a certain distance,* and arranged that the discharge of a Ley den jar should indicate the precise moment for noting the position of the hands ; but while he was thus removing one difficulty he found himself introducing another, vis., one of electrical insulation. The more he ex- tended his wires, the greater, of course, his difficulty became, until in despair he abandoned the use of electricity, and took to that of optico-mechanics.
In the actual state of telegraphy this circumstance becomes an interesting one, for Chappe held in his hands a power which was destined soon, under another form, to demolish the grand structure on which he was about to spend so much time and labour. Hap- pily, perhaps, he did not live to experience this mortification, for he died January 23, 1805, at the early age of forty-two.
1790. — Riveroni-Saint-Cyr' s Telegraph.
This gallant officer is said to have proposed in this year an electric telegraph for announcing the result of the lottery drawings, so as to frustrate the knaveries
* Gerspach's Histoire Administrative de la TU'egraphie A'erienne en France, Paris, 1 86 1, p. 7.
96 A History of Electric Telegraphy
of certain individuals ; but, apparently, details are wanting.*
1794. — Reusser's Telegraph.
The next proposal of which we have to speak, and which, in comparison with Lomond's, or Chappe's, was a very clumsy one, is thus described by its author :t —
" I have lately contrived a species of electric letter post, by means of which a letter may be sent in one moment to a great distance. I sit at home before my electric machine, and I dictate to some one, on the other side of the street, an entire letter, which he himself writes down. On an ordinary table is fixed, in an upright position, a square board to which a glass plate is fastened. On this plate are glued little squares of tin-foil, cut after the fashion of luminous panes, and each standing for a letter of the alphabet. From one side of these little squares extend long wires, enclosed in glass tubes, which go, underground, to the place whither the despatch is to be transmitted. The distant ends are there connected to tin-foil strips similar in all respects to the first, and, like them, each marked by a letter of the alphabet ; the free ends of all the strips are connected to one return-wire, which goes to the transmitting table. If, now, one touches the outer coating of a Leyden jar with the return-wire
* Etenaud's La T'eUgraphie Electrique, &c., MontpeUier, 1872, vol. i. p. 27. t Voigt's Magazinfur das Neueste aus der Physik, vol. ix. part i. p. 183.
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and connects the inner coating with the free end of that piece of tin-foil which corresponds to the letter required to be indicated, sparks will be produced, as well at the near, as at the distant tin-foil, and the cor- respondent there watching will write down the letter."
Reusser concludes : " Will the execution of this plan, on a large scale, ever take place ? That is not the question. It is possible, though it would cost a good deal, but post horses from St. Petersburg to Lisbon are also very expensive. At any rate, when- ever the idea is realised I will claim a recompense."
The editor, Johann Heinrich Voigt, appends to the above communication the suggestion of an alarum, which is usually credited to Reusser himself Voigt says : " Mr. Reusser ought to have proposed to add to his arrangement a flask of some detonating gas, which one could explode by means of the electric spark, and so attract the attention of the distant correspondent to his tin-foil squares."
In comparing the accounts of Reusser's telegraph usually given with our own, many inaccuracies will be observed. Thus, most writers affirm that each piece of tin-foil was cut into the form of a letter of the alphabet, which, on the passage of the spark, became luminous, as in the French telegraph of 1782, or in that of Salva, which will presently be described. The German text does not admit of this interpretation, for, if such were the case, it would have been unnecessary to affix letters to the squares of tin-foil. Neither is
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there any authority for the statement that thirty-six circuits for letters and numerals were proposed, which, according to some writers, were entirely metallic, and, therefore, consisted of seventy-two wires, while others assert that there were only thirty-six wires, and that the earth was employed to complete the circuits. Again, it is always said that Reusser, or rather Voigt, was the first to propose an alarum, whereas we have seen that this was done, twelve years before, by the anonymous correspondent of the yournal de Paris, 1782.
1794-5. — Bockmann's, Lullin's, and Cavaltds Telegraphs.
Bockmann, Lullin, and Cavallo, all about this time, proposed various modifications of Reusser's plan, all requiring but one or two wires, and differing only in their methods of combining the sparks and intervals into a code, Bockmann's, which is a mere sugges- tion, is to be found at p. 17 of his Versuch iiber Tele- graphie und Telegraphen, published at Carlsruhe in 1794 ;* Lullin's we have not been able to trace further back than Reid's The Telegraph in America, New York, 1879, p. 69; while Cavallo's is described, at length, in his Complete Treatise on Electricity, &c., t from which we condense the following account : —
"The attempts recently made," says Cavallo, "to convey intelligence from one place to another at a great distance, with the utmost quickness, have in-
* Also Zetzsche's GeschUhte der Ekktrischen Telegraphic, p, 32. t Fourth edition, London, 1795, vol. iii. pp. 285-96.
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duced me to publish the following experiments, which I made some years ago, and of which I should not have taken any further notice, had it not been for the above-mentioned circumstance, which shows that they may possibly be of use for that and other purposes."
The object for which those experiments were per- formed was to fire gunpowder, or other combustible matter, from a great distance, by means of electricity. At first a circuit was made with a very long brass wire, the two ends of which returned to the same place, whilst the middle was at a great distance. At this (middle) point an interruption was made, in which a cartridge of gunpowder, mixed with steel filings, was placed. Then, by applying a charged Leyden phial to the two extremities of the wire (in the usual way) the cartridge was fired.
It proving very troublesome to keep the wires from touching, the experiment was tried with one wire only. A brass wire, one-fiftieth of an inch diameter, and two hundred feet long, was laid on the ground, and one end was inserted in the cartridge of gunpowder and steel filings. Another piece of the same wire had, likewise, one end inserted in the cartridge, whilst the other was thrust into the ground. The distant end of the wire was then connected to the inner coating of a charged jar, while the outer coating was touched with a ground wire. That the discharge took place as before, was proved by the powder being sometimes fired. Phosphorus and other combustible substances were
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next tried, but nothing was found to succeed so well as a mixture of inflammable and common air, con- fined in specially prepared flasks.
Having made this discovery, Cavallo next directed his attention to the best means of insulating the com- municating wire, and at last so contrived that it might be laid indifferently on wet or dry ground, or even through water.
"A piece of annealed copper or brass wire," he says, " being stretched from one side of a room to the other, heat it by means of a flame of a candle, or of a red-hot piece of iron, and, as you proceed, rub a lump of pitch over the part just heated. When the wire has been thus covered, a slip of linen rag must be put round it, which can be easily made to adhere, and over this rag another coat of melted pitch must be laid with a brush. This second layer must be covered with a slip of woollen cloth, which must be fastened by means of a needle and thread. Lastly, the cloth must be covered with a thick coat of oil paint. In this manner many pieces of wire, each of about twenty or thirty feet in length, may be prepared, which may afterwards be joined together, so as to form one continued metallic communication ; but care must be taken to secure the places where the pieces are joined, which is most readily done by wrapping a piece of oil-silk over the painted cloth, and binding it with thread. When a long wire has been thus made out of the various short pieces, let
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one end of it be formed into a ring, and to the other adapt a small brass ball.
" Through the wires so prepared the flask of inflam- mable air was always exploded, and whenever the discharge was passed through a flask of common air a spark was seen, and by sending a number of such sparks at different intervals of time according to a settled plan, any sort of intelligence might be con- veyed instantaneously from the place in which the operator stands to the other place in which the flask is situated." *
"With respect to the greatest distance to which such communication might be extended," concludes Cavallo, " I can only say that I never tried the expe- riment with a wire of communication longer than about two hundred and fifty feet ; but from the results of those experiments, and from the analogy of other facts, I am led to believe that the above-mentioned sort of communication might be extended to two or three miles, and probably to a much greater distance."
1795-8. — Salvd's Telegraph.
Of all the pioneers of the electric telegraph in the last century, Don Francisco Salva, of Barcelona,!
* Moigno {Tiligraphie Alectrique, p. 6l) says Cavallo proposed to express signals by the explosion, by the spark, of such substances as gun- powder, phosphorus, phosphuretted hydrogen, &c., but this is an error.
t Don Francisco Salva y CampiUo was bom at Barcelona, July 12, 1751. After graduating, with honours, in the universities of his native place, of Valencia, of Huesca, and of Tolosa, he travelled in Italy, France, and other parts of the Continent, and made the acquaintance
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deserves the most honourable mention, as well for the extent and completeness of his designs, as for the zeal and intelligence with which he carried them out. His proposals are described with great clearness in a memoir which he read before the Academy of Sciences, Barcelona, December i6, 179S, and from which we cannot do better than make some extracts :* —
" If," he says, " there were a wire from this city to Mataro, and another from Mataro back, and a man were there to take hold of the ends, we might, with a Leyden jar, give him a shock from this end, and so advise him of any matter previously agreed on, such as a friend's death. But this is not enough, as, if elec- tricity is to be of any use in telegraphy, it must be capable of communicating every kind of information whatsoever; it must, in a word, be able to speak. This is happily of no great difficulty.
" With twenty-two letters, or even with eighteen, we can express, with sufficient precision, every word in the language, and thus, with forty-four wires from Mataro to Barcelona, twenty-two men there, each to take hold of a pair of wires, and twenty-two charged Leyden jars here, we could speak with Mataro, each man there representing a letter of the alphabet, and giving
of many of its learned men, including Le Sage, Reusser, and other well-known electricians. Besides being an able electrician, Salvi was a distinguished physician, and ardently promoted the cause of vaccina- tion in Spain. He died February 13, 1828. See Saavedra's Biography in the Revista de Telegrafos for 1876.
* Translated from Saavedra's Tratado de Telegrafia, 2nd ed., pp. 1 19-24 of vol. i.
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notice when he felt the shock. Let us suppose that those receive shocks who represent the letters p, e, d, r, o, we shall then have transmitted the word Pedro. All this is within the limits of possibility; but let us see if it cannot be simplified.*
" It is not necessary to keep twenty-two men at Mataro, nor twenty-two Leyden jars at Barcelona, if we fix the ends of each pair of the wires in such a way that one or two men may be able to discriminate the signcJs. In this way six or eight jars at each end would suffice for intercommunication, for, of course,
* Zetzsche {GesckichU der Elektrischen Telegraphie, p. 2l) says no attempt had been made to construct a telegraph with the physiological effects of static electricity for its basis. Salva's is an early example ; here is another, though of a negative kind. The Rev. J. Gamble, in his excellent treatise on Semaphoric Telegraphs, says, in reviewing the different modes of conmiunication that had been proposed np to his time: —
"Full as many, if not greater, objections will probably operate against every contrivance where electricity shall be used as the vehicle of information. The velocity vrith which this fluid passes, where the conductors are tolerably perfect, and also that it may be made to pass through water to a very great distance, when it forms part of the circuit, are properties which appear to have given rise to the idea of using it as a means of correspondence. I have never [?even] heard it men- tioned, that an alarm may be given to a very great distance, by firing a pistol charged with inflammable air, which explodes by the smallest spark of electricity ; but the further communication could only be main- tained by a certain number of shocks being the preconcerted signal of each letter, and requires that the man who receives the intelligence should remain constantly in the circuit of the electric fluid. The whole success of the experiment would likewise depend on an apparatus liable to an infinite number of accidents, scarce in the power of human foresight to guard against." — Essay on the Different Modes of Commu- nication by Signals, London, 1797, p. 73. We shall meet with other e.xamples fiirther on.
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Mataro can as easily speak with Barcelona, as Bar- celona with Mataro.
" It appears, however, little short of impossible to erect and maintain so many wires, for, even with the loftiest and most inaccessible supports, boys would manage to injure them ; but as it is not necessary to keep them very far apart, they can be rolled together in one strong cable, and placed at a great height.* In the first trials made with a cable of this kind I covered each wire with paper, coated with pitch, or some other idio-electric substance, then, tying them together, I bound the whole with more paper, which effectually prevented any lateral escape of the elec- tricity. In practice the wire cable could be laid in subterranean tubes, which, for greater insulation, should be covered with one or two coats of resin."
In selecting Barcelona and Mataro, distant about thirteen miles, Salvd did not imply that this was the limit at which his telegraph would be practicable ; on the contrary, he thought it very probable that the distance at which the electric discharge would be effective was proportional to the number of jars, and; therefore, that with a large battery telegraphic com- munication may be established between Barcelona and Madrid, and even between places one hundred, or more, leagues apart.
After showing the superiority of an electric tele- graph over the optical (semaphore) system then in * As is done in London at the present day.
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use, he lays special stress on the advantages of the former as regards communication between places separated by the sea, and adds : —
" In no place can the electric telegraph [wires] be better deposited. It is not impossible to construct, or protect, the cables with their twenty-two [pairs of] wires, so as to render them impervious to the water. At the bottom of the sea their bed would be ready made for them, and it would be an extraordinary casualty indeed that should disturb them. * * *
" In 1747, Watson, Bevis, and others, in England, showed how the water of the Thames may be made to form part of the circuit of a Leyden jar, and this makes us consider whether it would not suffice for our telegraph to lay a cable of twenty-two wires only across the sea, and to use the water of the latter in place of the twenty-two return wires." *
In the experiments with which Salvd illustrated his paper, he indicated the letters in a way which, by some strange mistake, has always been ascribed to Reusser. The seventeen essential letters of the
* Because Baron Schilling, of St. Petersburg, used a "subaqueous galvanic conducting cord" across the river Neva in 1812, and, in 1837, proposed to unite Cronstadt with the capital by means of a submarine cable, he has been called the Father of submarine telegraphy (Hamel's Historical Account, &c., pp. 16 and 67, of W. F. Cooke's reprint). But Salvaviras, as vre here see, at least seventeen years before him with the suggestion, and to Salva therefore ought to belong the honour which has hitherto been accorded to the Russian philosopher. As we shall see in a future chapter, this is not the only case in which honours justly due to Salva are unjustly heaped on another.
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alphabet (for he omitted those little used, or whose power could be represented by others) were cut out of parallel strips of tin-foil, pasted on bits of glass, after the fashion of spangled panes, and to the ends of each piece of tin-foil were attached the extremities of the corresponding pair of wires. All tfie wires were bound up in two cables, which were prepared in the way before described, the out-going wires being col- lected in one cable, and the return wires in the other.
To indicate a letter. A, for example, it was only necessary to take the ends of the corresponding pair of wires, and connect one end with the outer, and the other with the inner coating of a charged jar. Imme- diately on thus completing the circuit, the observer, at the other end of the cable, heard the noise of the spark, and saw it illuminate the letter A, in its passage across the breaks in the tin-foil.*
From 1796 to 1799 Salvd resided at Madrid, having been invited by the Academy of Sciences of that capital to engage in some experiments of great public interest. There he had the entrie of all the salons, and was courted by everybody of consideration — amongst the rest, by the Infante Don Antonio, who appears to have assisted him in perfecting his tele-
* "The late Dr. Balcells, professor in the Industrial School of Barcelona, whose acquaintance I made towards the latter years of his long life, and who, in his turn, had known the celebrated physicist, Salva, has often assured me that the apparatus just described was tried by its inventor from the Academy of Sciences to the Fort of Atara- zanas, across the Ramblas, a distance of about a kilometre." — Saavedra, Tratado de Telegrafia, 2nd ed., vol. i. p. 122.
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graph. The favourite Godoy, Prince of Peace, was another good friend, to whom Salva was indebted for an introduction to the King, Charles IV., as we learn from the following paragraph in the Gaceta de Madrid, November 29, 1796:* — "The Prince of Peace, who testifies the most laudable zeal for the progress of the sciences, understanding that Dr. Francisco Salvd had read at the Academy of Sciences, at Barcelona, a memoir on the application of electricity to the tele- graph, and presented at the same time an electrical telegraph of his own invention, requested to examine the apparatus himself. Satisfied with the exactness and celerity with which communications may be made by its means, he introduced the doctor to the King of Spain. The Prince of Peace afterwards, in the presence of their Majesties and the whole court, made some communications with this telegraph, completely to their satisfaction. The Infante Don Antonio pro- poses to have one of them of the most complete construction, which shall possess power sufficient to communicate between the greatest distances, by land
* First translated into English in The Monthly Magazine, for February 1797, p. 148. Also noticed in Voigt's Magazin, for 1798, vol. xi. part iv. p. 61. As a curiosity of bookmaking, we may observe that, in every account of Salva's telegraph that we have seen, the extracts from the Madrid Gaceta and Voigt's Magazin are given as if they referred to two entirely different affairs, the latter being usually rendered as follows : — Voigt's Magazin, in reference to these experiments, an- nounced two years afterwards that Don Antonio constructed a telegraph upon a very grand scale, and to a very great extent. It also states that the same young Prince was informed at night, by means of this telegraph, of news that highly interested him ! See Highton's Electric Telegraph : its History and Progress, London, 1853, p. 43, as a case in point.
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or sea. With this view, His Highness has ordered the construction of an electrical machine, the cylinder of which is to be more than forty inches in diameter. He intends, as soon as it is finished, to undertake a series of curious and useful experiments, in con- junction with Dr. Salvd. This is an employment worthy of a great prince. An account of the results will be given to the public in due course."
Notwithstanding this promise, the subject is not again referred to in any succeeding number of the Gaceta; but according to Dr. Balcells, the friend of Salvd, a modification of his telegraph which required only one wire was actually constructed in 1798 be- tween Madrid and Aranjuez, a distance of about twenty-six miles. At p. 14 of Gauss and Weber's Resultate, &c., for 1837, there is a note of Humboldt's in which he refers to this line, but credits it to B^tancourt, a French engineer. This is clearly a mis- take, into which the great traveller might have been led by the probable fact that an engineer of that name was employed to superintend the work — a sup- position which is likely enough seeing the greatness of the undertaking.
Dr. Balcells, whose evidence as just quoted should be conclusive on this point, says, further, that the remains of SalvA's telegraph, which, at first, were destined for Don Antonio's museum, were presented, in 1824, to the College of Pharmacy of San Fernando, of which he (Balcells) was then the Adjutant* * Saavedra, vol. i. p. 124.
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CHAPTER IV.
TELEGRAPHS BASED ON STATIC, OR FRICTIONAL, ELECTRICITY {continued).
1802. — Alexandras Telegraph.
Twenty-five years ago, in the course of a research amongst the imperial archives at Paris, M. Edouard Gerspach, of the French Telegraph Administration, discovered some documents which, in our eyes, are of exceeding value, as establishing for La Belle France the honour of the invention of the first step-by-step, or A.B.C., telegraph. These papers were embodied by M. Gerspach in a memoir for the Annales 7V//- graphiques for March-April, 1859, pp. 188-99, to which we are indebted for much of what follows in this article.
Jean Alexandre was born at Paris, the natural son, it is said, of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He had the education of a mechanic, some say of a physician, but his actual career was truly a faithful image of the troublous times in which he lived. In 1787 he was at Poitiers, following the trade of gilder, and, as he had a fine voice, he sang in the churches, which added somewhat to his slender emoluments. But soon the
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revolution came to Poitiers, and swept away the clientele of the poor gilder and carver. He went to Paris, and there maintained himself for a while by singing in the choir of St. Sulpice ; but the revolu- tionary tide followed him, and closed the doors of St. Sulpice, as of all the other churches, leaving Alexandre high and dry again, without the means of subsistence.
Feeling there was nothing else to be done, he now took to politics, and, after the manner of the times, soon found himself president of a section of the Luxembourg (club), and, later on, a deputy of the Convention. This latter honour, however, his simple manners made him decline. But greater still were yet in store, and, as he was preparing to return to his workshop at Poitiers, the Government sent him thither, but with the exalted rank of Commissary- General of War. Later on, he was promoted to be chief of the military division of Lyons, where he had to organise an army of 80,000 men. With the title of Chief Agent of the Army of the West, he next went to Angers, where, from the forty-two depart- ments that were under his orders, he had to raise another army of 200,000 men. With all this great- ness, he still was not happy ; he yearned for a quiet life — a feeling which seems to have grown daily stronger with him, until, at last becoming irresistible, he quitted honours and politics, and returned to his home at Poitiers, as poor as he had left it — a fact, by
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the way, which speaks volumes for the integrity of his character.
Here we find him, in 1 802, producing his UUgraphe intime, or secret telegraph. He wrote to Chaptal, Minister of the Interior, acquainting him briefly with the discovery, and asking assistance to enable him to go to Paris, and exhibit his machine to the Govern- ment. The Minister asked (and naturally), in the first place, for full particulars and plans of the apparatus, but Alexandre declined to divulge his secret, and addressed himself next to Cochon, Prefect of Vienne, offering to make an experiment before him. The Prefect, agreeably impressed with the con- versation of the inventor, whose quick and vigorous imagination he found to contrast singularly with the simplicity of his demeanour, granted his request, and accordingly, on the 13th Brumaire, year X (early in 1802), he went, accompanied by the chief engineer of the department, to Alexandre's house. The experi- ments were crowned with unhoped-for success, and the Prefect drew up a report for the minister, Chaptal, of which the following is the substance : —
"We were conducted into a room on the ground floor, in the centre of which we found a box nearly I • S metre high, and about 30 centimetres broad and deep. This box was surmounted by a dial, around which were traced all the letters of the alphabet. A well-poised needle, or pointer, travelled round the circle at the will of a distant and invisible agent, and
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stopped over such letters as composed the words that he wished to communicate. The completion of each word and phrase was indicated by an entire revolu- tion of the pointer, which, in its normal state of rest, always occupied a certain determined position [cor- responding, no doubt, to our zero].
"A correspondence was established between the [distant] agent and ourselves, and the success was all that we could desire. The dial repeated exactly all the phrases that we had dictated, and the [distant] agent added some from himself, which we had no difficulty in understanding. On asking why the second box was situated in an upper story, about 1 5 metres distant, instead of being placed on the same level as the first, the inventor replied that it was to show that difference of level had no eifect on its action, and that the conductors could in every case go up and down, and adapt themselves to the inequalities of the ground.
" We understood, without, however, his distinctly saying so, that the author derives his power (usage) from some fluid, either electric or magnetic. He told us that, in the course of experiment, he had met with a strange matter, or power (of which, until then, he had been ignorant) which, he was almost tempted to believe, is generally diffused, and forms, in some sort, the soul of the universe ; that he had discovered the means of utilising the effects of this power, so as to make them conduce to the success of his machine ;
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and that he was certain of being able to propagate them with the celerity of light, and to any distance that may be required."
In concluding this report on the invention, which the Prefect characterised as a work of genius, he urged that Alexandre should be called to Paris, at the expense of the State, in order that he may repeat his experiments under the eyes of the Government The minister, Chaptal, did not, however, regard the discovery at all so favourably, evidently imagining it to be a telegraph of the Chappe, or semaphore, kind, and wrote to the inventor's agent, declining to have anything to do with him. Such a rebuff would have 'acted as a quietus to ordinary people; but in- ventors are proverbially a tenacious race. Alexandre was an inventor, and, firm in his convictions, he quitted Poitiers, and, in hopes of better fortune, betook himself to Tours.
There, at his invitation, General Pommereul, Prefect of the Department of the Indre and Loire, and the mayor and officers of the city of Tours, assembled at his house to assist at a public trial of the apparatus. As before, one of the machines was on the ground floor, and the other on the first story, separated from the lower room by an antechamber and a small court. The Prefect dictated the phrase, "Genius knows no limits," which was transmitted to the distant end, and thence returned with all the success imaginable. The next phrase, "There are no longer miracles," was
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repeated with the same result, and many others fol- lowed, in which all the words were reproduced by the machines, letter for letter, with the greatest exactness.* All these experiments, conclusive as they were, had, nevertheless, little effect in advancing Alexandre's interests ; they drew on him the commendations of the multitude, made his name known, but contributed nothing towards the attainment of his end, which was Paris, and the patronage of the First Consul, to whom only would he confide his secret. Having no money for the further prosecution of his plans, he now entered into partnership with a M. Beauvais, who was to supply all sums necessary, and to receive in return a quarter of the profits of the enterprise, Alexandre keeping to himself the secret of his invention until he had netted 6o,CK)0 francs by its exploitation, after which it was to become joint property. No sooner were these terms concluded than Beauvais, provided with the official accounts of the experiments at Poitiers and Tours, addressed himself to Napoleon, and solicited the honour of a trial in his apartments, and in his presence alone. Napoleon, perhaps smelling gunpowder, declined the meeting, but referred the papers to Delambre, the illustrious academician and
* The English C/4w««(r& newspaper of June 19-22, 1802, has a short account of these experiments, concluding as follows : — " The art or mechanism by which this is effected is unknown, but the inventor says that he can extend it to the distance of four or five leagues, even though a river should be interposed." There is a copy, probably unique, in Mr. Latimer Clark's library.
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astronomer, who, some weeks later, returned a report, of which the following is a free translation : —
" Report of Citizen Delambre on the Secret Telegraph of Citizen Alexandre, submitted to the First Consul by Citizen Beauvais.
"Paris, 10 Fructidor, an X.
"The papers which the First Consul has caused me to examine do not contain sufficient details to enable me to form an opinion, nor, after the two interviews that I have had with Citizen Beauvais, am I able to do more than offer the merest conjectures on the ad- vantages and disadvantages of the Secret Telegraph.
"Citizen Beauvais knows the secret of Citizen Alexandre, but he has promised to impart it to no one but the First Consul himself. This circumstance must make any report from me valueless, for how can one judge of a machine which one has neither seen nor understands ?
" All that we know is that this telegraph is com- posed of two similar boxes, each having a dial, round whose face are marked all the letters of the alphabet. By means of a winch, or handle, the pointer of one dial is moved to any desired letter or letters, and, at the same instant, the pointer of the other dial repeats the same movements, and in exactly the same order. When these two boxes are placed in two separate apartments, two persons can write and reply without seeing each other, and without being seen, and in such a way that no one can doubt the correspondence,
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which, moreover, can be carried on at any time, as neither night nor fogs can intercept the transmission.
"By means of this telegraph the governor of a besieged place could carry on a secret and continuous correspondence with a person four or five leagues distant, or even at any distance, and communication can be established between the two boxes as readily as one can hang a bell {ciu'on poserait un mouvement de sonnette).
" The inventor carried out two experiments with his machines at Poitiers and at Tours, in presence of the prefects and mayors of the respective places, and the official reports of these functionaries attest that the results were completely successful. Now, the inventor and his associate ask, either that the First Consul will be pleased to permit of one of the boxes being placed in his apartment, and the other in that of the Consul Cambac6r^s, so as to give to their experiments all the Mat and authenticity possible ; or, that he will accord an audience of ten minutes to Citizen Beauvais, who will then communicate to him the secret (of the telegraph), which is so simple that the bare description will be equivalent to a practical demonstration. They add that the idea is so natural as to leave little room to fear that it will ever occur to any savant \sic\ It is said, however, that Citizen Montgolfier divined it, after some hours' reflection, on a description of the apparatus which was given to him.
" After this statement, which is the substance of my conversations with Citizen Beauvais, a very few
io the Year 1837. 117
remarks must suffice. If, as one would be inclined to believe from the comparison with bell-hanging, the means employed comprised wheels, levers, and such like,* the invention would not be very surprising, and one could easily imagine the practical difficulties that would be encountered as soon as it was attempted to employ it over distances of several leagues.
"If, on the contrary, as the official report from Poitiers seems to show, the means of communication is a fluid {L e., a natural force), the inventor deserves much more credit for having discovered how to utilise it so as to produce, at any distance, effects so regular and so unfailing. But then, one may demand, what guarantee have we for these effiscts ? Neither the experiments at Poitiers, nor those at Tours, in which the distance was only a few metres, supply it. No more would the proposed experiment between the chambers of the First and Second Consuls. So long as the motive power remains a secret, one can never vouch for more than what one sees, and it will be entirely wrong to conclude, from the success of an experiment on a small scale, that like results will be obtained over more considerable distances. If the effect is only attainable at a distance of some few metres, the machine ought to be sent to the scientific toy shops.
" If Citizen Beauvais, who offers to defray the expenses of an experiment, had proposed to carry it out in presence of commissioners appointed for the
* Forming, in fact, a kind of mechanical telegraph like the railway semaphores of to-day.
ii8 A History of Electric Telegraphy
purpose, there could be no objection to granting his request ; for, although an experiment on a small scale would not be very conclusive, still it would enable us to see what might be hoped from a trial of a grander and more expensive kind. But Citizen Beauvais, without expressly declining a commission, desires, in the first place, to secure the testimony and approbation of the First Consul. It only remains, then, for the First Consul to say whether, in view of the little chance of success attaching to an invention so little proved, and announced as so marvellous, he will spare a few moments for the examination of a discovery of an artist, who is described as one as full of genius as he is devoid of scientific learning and of fortune.
" He makes a secret of his discovery, and I ought to judge it with severity, and according to the laws of probability; but the limits of the probable are not those of the possible, and Citizen Alexandre must be sure of his facts, since he offers to expose all to the First Consul. It, therefore, only remains for me to hope that the First Consul will grant him an audience, and that, in the sequel, he will have reason to welcome the inventor, and recompense worthily the author.
" Delambre."
With this most interesting document ends the story of the Secret Telegraph, In 1806 Alexandre
to the Year 1837. 119
was at Bordeaux, taking out a patent for a machine for filtering the water of the Garonne for supplying the city ; but, although the authorities seem to have afforded him every facility towards the accomplish- ment of his scheme, it was never carried out, through want of money. We next hear of him in 1831, when he submitted to the King, Louis Philippe, a project for steering balloons. He died soon after at Angou- l^me, leaving a widow, who died in 1833, at Poitiers, in extreme want.
Such is the sad story, as told by M. Gerspach, of one who must be regarded as a veritable pioneer in electric telegraphy ; for, although Alexandre chose to surround his invention with an air of mystery, and preserved only too faithfully the secret of its action, we believe that he had, in effect, constructed a tele- graph of the A, B, C, sort, with static electricity as his motive power.
Some writers, however, regard his apparatus, like that of Comus, as only another instance of the sympa- thetic needle telegraph, and seek to explain its action somewhat after the manner figured and described by Guyot.* But there seems to us to be two very good reasons against this theory : first, the impossibility of carrying out any such deception in the apartments of the two consuls ; and second, the character of
* Nouvelles Rkrlations Physiqttes et Matklmaiijues, Paris, 1769, vol. i. p. 134. M. Aug. Guerout is the latest exponent of this theory. See La Lumiire Alectrique, for March 3, 1883.
I20 A History of Electric Telegraphy
Napoleon, who, as all the world knows, was not a man to be trifled with.
The suspicion of Delambre, that it partook of the nature of a mechanical telegraph, we consider equally disproved by the words of the prods-verbal from Poitiers. " He told us that, in the course of experi- ment, he had met with a strange matter, or power (of which, until then, he had been ignorant), which, he was almost tempted to believe, is generally diffused, and forms in some sort the soul of the universe ; that he had discovered the means of utilising the effects of this power, so as to make them conduce to the success of his machine ; and that he was certain of being able to propagate them with the celerity of light, and to any distance that may be required." Surely a mechanician would not speak thus of a combination of ropes, wheels, and pulleys. Although, once upon a time, Archimedes glorified the power of the lever, when he said that by its means he could move the world, no Archimedes of our day would be so extravagant as to call the same power, mighty as it is, the soul of the universe.
On the other hand, the language just quoted would apply very well to electricity. Thales called it a spirit. Otto Guericke thought it controlled the revolu- tion of the moon round the earth, and Stephen Gray that of the planets round the sun ; Franklin showed its identity with lightning ; John Wesley regarded it as an universal healer ; and Galvani had just con-
to the Year 1837. 121
founded it with life. Well, then, might Alexandre be excused for calling it the soul of the universe.
Again, let us recollect that while he was still a young man the invention of the Chappe semaphore, and its wonderful performances, were the theme of daily conversation ; and that rival plans were being frequently started — some, semaphores more or less like Chappe's, and for night as well as day service ; some, based on the properties of acoustics, as those of Gauthey and Count Rumford ; and some again, as we have seen in these pages, on those of electricity.* What more natural, then, than that Alexandre, a clever mechanician, and a man of a quick and vigorous imagination, should invent an electric telegraph.
Now, let us regard the apparatus as described by M. Cochon, in connection with the half admission that electricity was its basis, and that it was operated by a winch, or handle, as mentioned by Delambre. Do not this handle, the box, the dial on the top, and the conductor recall the telegraph of Lomond, which was the wonder of Paris in 1787, and which has been already described in these pages. The dial of Alex- andre, it is true, is an immense improvement on the
* We may here refer to a remark of Amyot's, for which we have not been able to find room before, to the effect that, somewhere about 1798, Henry Monton Berton, the distinguished French composer, conceived the idea of an electric telegraph (Note historique sur le TUigraphe £lectrijue, in the Comptes Rendus, for July 9, 1838). This note is reprinted in extenso in Juha de Fontenelle's Manuel de I' Alectrkitl, but in neither case are any details given.
122 A History of Electric Telegraphy
pith-ball indicator of Lomond, but that (the dial), too, had its prototype in the synchronous clockwork dial with which Chappe essayed an electric telegraph in 1790, and which, no doubt, was equally well known as the machine of Lomond. Indeed, the inference to us seems irresistible, that Alexandre took Lomond's and Chappe's contrivances as his basis, and built upon them his own improvements.
The only point that remains for consideration is, how did the working (? revolving) of the handle actuate the pointers ? The explanation to our mind is not far to seek. Given an electrical machine inside the box, and a train of wheels behind the dial, and in gear with the pointer, and it would be easy for a clever mechanician to make the repulsion of a sort of pith-ball electrometer (acting also as a pawl) against a discharging surface, and its subsequent collapse, give motion of a step-by-step character to the wheels, and, through them, to the pointer. The prime conductors of both machines would, under our supposition, be connected by a wire (probably con- cealed from view), and thus the movements of one pointer would be synchronous with those of the other.
Some writers, as Cezanne * and Berio,t think it likely
that Alexandre used the electricity of the pile, then
newly discovered by Volta ; but the use of a handle
is as fatal to such an assumption, as it is favourable to
that of an electrical machine being the primum mobile.
* Le Cable Transailantique, Paris, 1867, p. 32.
t Ephemerides of the Lecture Society, Genoa, 1872, p. 645.
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1806-14. — Ralph Wedgwood's Telegraph.
The next proposal of a telegraph based, presumably, on static, or frictional, electricity, is due to a member of the Wedgwood family. Ralph Wedgwood was born