An ingenious plan is said to have been laid before
the Academy of Sciences at Paris for floating an aerial telegraph by balloons. A captive balloon would be sent up with another (free) balloon, to which it would pay out wire, the manager of the free balloon attaching minute balloons at intervals to the wire in order to keep it high in the air, then, descending at a safe distance from the enemy, the other end of the wire would be lodged in French keeping. Another plan still more ingenious has been suggested by the same savant, M. Jules Guerin. It is to run the wire through a tube, many sections of which would be filled with a gas lighter than air, so as to make the tube itself a balloon. The difficulty would be, one would think, to keep the wire high enough to be beyond gun- shots, especially on the former plan, where the minute balloons attached to keep the wire ig4he air would offer excellent marks for the rifle. But certainly ebesieged capital does develop very ingenious devices for its own safety and convenience. As for the carrier-pigeons, it is said that Count Bismarck has sent for hawks. from Germany to kill them. Only they are, we believe, muck swifter than hawks.
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