ANTIQUITY OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.
TO THE EDITOR OF TIIE SPEC TATO&
17th August 1847.
Sra—Solomon says, "There is nothing new under the sun." The 'Electric Telegraph" is considered by many to be the most wonderful of modern inven- tions; and yet the following extract will show that the idea of such a medium of communication was started long ago. The passage referred to was, of course, fanciful; but the striking similarity between the fiction of ancient times and the reality of the moderns is so remarkable, that I think you may deem it worthy of being inserted in your Spectator. Ought not the Society of Antiquaries and the British Association to take up
cudgels on the subject? lam, Sir, yours, &c. G. E. L. U.
Extract from a Paper by Addison in the Spectator, No. 241, entitled "Letter ors the Absence of Lovers—Remedies proposed."
" Strada, in one of his Prolusions, (Lib. ii. proL 6,) gives an account of a chi- merical correspondence between two friends by the help of a certain headstone, which had such virtue in it, that if it touched two several needles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, the other, though at never so great a dis- tance, moved at the same time and in the same manner. He tells us, that the two friends being each of them possessed of one of these needles, made a kind of dial- plate, inscribing it with the four-and-twenty letters, in the same manner as the hours of the day are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate. They then fixed one of the needles on each of these plates in such a manner that it could move round without impediment, so as to touch any of the four-and-twenty letters. Upon their separating from one another into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day, and to con- verse with one another by means of this their invention. Accordingly, when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the time appointed, and immediately cast his eye upon his dial-plate. If he had a mind to write anything to his friend, he directed his needle to every letter that formed the words which he had occasion for, making a little pause at the end of every word or sentence to avoid confusion. The friend in the mean while saw his own sympathetic needle moving of itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at. By this means, they talked together across a whole continent, and conveyed their thoughts to one another in an instant over cities or mountains, seas or deserts."
Previous page
