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202 THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF TELEGRAPH^.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
. ¦ •¦ The Word " Telegraph" (Derived Fr...
In 1617 , a curious book , entitled " Prolusious , " etc ., written by a floating Roman Jesuit about named concerning Strada * a mag , prove ical s magnetic that there telegrap "was a h vague . In idea this
book there is a fabled contrivance of two magnetic needles , attached to dials bearing a circle of lettersand which possessed the
pro-, perty of always indicating the same letters , so that when one needle was made to point to any particular letter , the other needle ,
however distant at the time , placed itself so as to point to the same letter . A detailed account of this curious idea will be found in the
"Spectator" No . 241 , andinthe " Guardian" No . 119 . Aided by the discoveries and experiments of Sir Isaac Newton ,
Hawkesbee , M . du Fay , the Abbe Nollet , Dr . Watson , Kleist and Muschenbroeck at Leyden , and others , electricity made slow but sure
progress ; but the first real attempt which seems to have been made to render electricity available for the transmission of signals , is
described by Moigno in his " Traite de Telegraphie Electrique . " It is that of Le Sarge , a scientific Frenchman , who in 1744 established
an electric telegraph at Geneva , composed of twenty-four metallic wires , separated from each other , and immersed in non-conducting
matter . In the first volume of Arthur Young ' s " Travel in France during \
the year 1757 " there is the following description of one of the | earliest electric telegraphs . " Mr . Lomond , " he says , " has made a I
remarkable discovery in electricity : you write two or three words upon paper , he takes them with him into a chamber , and turns a
machine in a cylinder case , on the top of which is an electrometer , j having a pretty little ball of the pith of a quill , suspended by a silk
thread ; a brass wire connects it to a similar cylinder and electrometer in a distant apartment ; and his wife , on observing the
movements of the corresponding ball , writes the words which it indicates . From this it appears that he has made an alphabet of
movements , and as the length of the brass wire made no difference , you could correspond at a great distance , as for example , with a besieged
city , or for purposes of more importance . " The " Madrid Gazette" of 1796 states that the Prince de la Paix ,
having heard that M . D . F . Salva had read to the Academy of Sciences a memoir upon the application of electricity to
telegraphing * , and that he had presented that body with an instrument of his own invention , expressed a wish to examine it , and being delighted
with the facility and promptness wifch which it worked , presented it before the king and court , operating upon it himself : Salva was
eventually invited to and entertained at the Court of Madrid . According to Humboldt , a telegraph of this description was established in | 1798
from Madrid to _Aranjuez , a distance of twenty-six miles . Other | writers , on the contrarysay that it was M . Betancourt established |
, this line ; but , be this as it may , it is quite certain that in 1787 I friotional electricity was used for the purpose of telegraphic com- 1
munication between these two places . . I
( To be continued , ) " I
202 The Rise And Progress Of Telegraph^.
202 THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF TELEGRAPH _^ .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Nov. 1, 1859, page 202, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01111859/page/58/
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