THE WORLD A TORPEDO!
BE not alarmed, gentle reader, at the startling announcement : though "the great globe which ye inhabit" is now proved to be one vast vol- taic battery, with power equal to effect its own destruction, there is no present danger of its committing suicide. He who has detected the latent torpedo has no intention of employing it to annihilate the world, but solely for the annihilation of space. Yes, truly, we and the Anti- podes may soon be placed in contact by galvanic influence—mentally at least—with heads to beads in lieu of feet to feet.
In a former notice of the improvements effected by Mr. BAIN in his electrical telegraph, we communicated his discovery that the circuit of a voltaic battery may be completed, by the earth as a conductor, from any points however distant. We then anticipated that the next step would be the application of the air as a conductor for the return current, so that earth and air might call and respond to each other from all quarters of the globe. Mr. BAIN has, however, shown that he can do more than this. He has converted the globe itself into a constant vol- taic battery, and proved that it may be rendered the means of carrying on instantaneous correspondence through the earth. This result was the se- qnence of the previous discovery ; for, having ascertained that the mois- ture of the earth is sufficiently conductive of the electric current of a vol- taic battery, he inferred that by placing a plate of copper and a plate of zinc under-ground and connecting them with an isolated wire, an electric current would be formed. The experiment was tried in Hyde Park, with zinc and copper plates placed a mile asunder; and with complete success. This discovery made, it was readily applied to simplify and work the electric telegraph. A single wire, connected with a copper plate at one terminus and with a zinc plate at the other, is now all the electrical apparatus required. The principle on which the telegraph operates with this simple self-acting battery is this—At each terminus there is a corresponding apparatus, with series of wheels like clock- work, which are set in motion by powerful springs or weights: this ap- paratus is so contrived, that when the hand of a dial is stopped at any letter marked thereon, that letter is printed on paper ; the hands on the dials at each station are adjusted alike ; therefore' when set in motion and stopped at the same instant, the hand of each dial will point to and print the same symbol. Electrical agency is required only to set the apparatus in motion : this it effects, whenever the voltaic connexion is broken, by deflecting a coil of wire, which action removes a stop ; the instant the voltaic circuit is renewed, the machinery ceases to act. The communications may thus be carried on for any time with great rapidity ; the symbol indicated on one dial being indicated on the other instanta- neously, however far apart. As the velocity of electricity is im- measurable; and as the conducting-power of the earth is without stint, there appears to be no assignable limit to the action of this terrestrial voltaic telegraph. Should the Lords of the Admiralty conclude satis- factorily their pending negotiation with the patentees for the construction of a telegraph on this principle between Portsmouth and London, the copper sheathing of the guard-ship in Portsmouth harbour would form a magnificent negative plate for the actuating battery ; the positive pole of which could be supplied by the water-tanks at the Admiralty, the space between them constituting an earthenware cell, OD a large scale.
These curious results of scientific investigation are probably capable of many other and of even more important applications than Mr. BAIN at present contemplates. To military men, for example, it may suggest the idea of applying the galvanic agency of the earth to the means of impregnable defence against invaders, by converting the islands of Great Britain and Ireland into gigantic torpedos. It is well known, that instant contact with a few plates of metals differently oxidizable will melt the hardest rocks and convulse the strongest animals : who then can calculate the effects when all the copper and tin in the bowels of Cornwall combine with the iron of Wales to produce a never-ending succession of shocks?
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