The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-24 00:00:00

TELEGRAPHIC CODING.

Coding is to telegeaphy what telegraphy was to let-
ter-wilting not many years ago. It bridges space
more certainly, effects an enormous saving in time,
and is imperfectly understood. Hitherto caling has
been confined to such merchants and others as
arranged a series of private signals with their agents,
and has never been adopted on a uniform and com-
prehensive sale. Private cocEng has, however, been
employed more w:th the view of securing secrecy
than speed; and a code which should at once.promote
accuracy, cheapen messages, rnd save labour, has
long been a desideratum with telegraphists all over
the world. When the first Atlantic cable was laid,
the importance of cod' fying messages sent through
it was so streligly fel:t that an elaborate volume was
compiled, by aid of which it was hoped to abbre-
N:ate language and save time. It was reserved, how-
ever, for the successful laying of the cable of this
year to elicit the most perfect code yet attained.
The following certificate, signed by Mr. Cyrus
Field, Mr. Cromwell Varley, and Professor Thom-
son, tells its own story respecting the system in-
vented by Captain Bolton, the heads of which we
propose to explain :

"We have witnessed several trials of Captain
Bolton's system of coding messages. These have
been transmitted through the Atlantic cable, first
by the Morse alphabet in full, and then codified.
" The messages have been correctly transmitted,
and the time occupied in doing so through the
cable has shown a saving in favour of Bolton's
code for messages of ordinary character, varying
from 50 to 400 per cent., according to the nature
of the message. " C. F. VA RLEY.

66 CYRUS W. FIELD.
WILLTAJI TIIO3IPSON.

July 9, 1866."
It may be added that Mr. Latimer Clark and the
rest of the scientific and practical electricians con-
nected with the undertaking coney-red in the above
testimony, and that we are able to confirm it from
having practically tested the merits of Capt. Bolton's
system. Every message sent through the Atlantic

or any other telegraphic line may be expressed, some
in half, some in a fractional part of the number of
words now employed. Any company who had the
exclusive use of this cade could afford to send mes-
sages at a moiety of the price demanded by its rivals.
any telegraphic agent enjoying its monopoly coulj
reduce his expenditure and amplify inte"tence
at least 50 per cent. ; and any merchant in posses-
sion of the secre'c, and the means of working it n-,'ght
telegraph to 11'3 agents in all languages and in every
part of the world at lees than half the rate he C''s-
burses now. In proof of this, and to show that the
code effects even greater economy than has been
clal'med for it, an interesting experiment was made
yesterday. The following message was taken from
the journals of the morning; and coded, when it was
found that sixty of what electricians know as " ele-
ments," or, in other words, sixty deflections of the
needle or-ray of light, sufficed to express every word
and fraction of a word it contains :
" AMERICA.
" (BY ATLANTiC TELEGRAPH.)
" NEW YORK, Aug. 20 (Even'ng).
" Gold, 1481. Exchange on London, 1581.
5-20 United States Bonds, 1101. Aliddlfng Up-
land, 34;c."
The message was moreover put into code and read
off without a moment's delay or a singl.e eiror ; and
the general reader w!'l understand the enormous
saving impliel when he lef',ras that " elements" in
the Morse alphabet rre the " dots" and " dashes"
which go to form the letters, so that sixty of these
represent a considerably less number of cha-
racters. Nor is there any e'fficulty in mastering
this s'lr'6ling system of abbrel:ation, or impairing
its mysteries to telegraphic operators. Since Co-

lumbus brv'sed the egg there has been nothing
simpler or more effective than Captain Bolton's mode
of rendering whole sentences by a few symbols, and

long words in a couple of characters. Another
curious thing is, that any language under the sun,
provided it is expressed by the Enesh alphabet,
can be transmitted by this code. Neither the ope-
rator who transmits the message, nor the clerk who

transfers it to paper, need comprehend a syllable
of the tongue they are conversing i.i ; mere nonsense
words can be expressed with a like facil;ty ; and the
whole charm can be learnt in a few minutes. In-
deed, this experiment might be easily tried. Y a
few gentlemen were, we will ny, given facilities
for inqu'ring into the working of the code—none of
whom had seen or investigated it before—.and were
asked what langaages they were acquainted with,
selections might be made and messages written out
and distributed in such a way that each man should
hold a sentence he could not read. Five minutes'
explanation of the system, and the means of work-
ing it, would enable every one present to express
the sentence he was unable to comprehend in the
sy eabols cf the code. These symbols can always be
read off with ease by those acquainted with the
method, and thus the absurd vnd annoying tele-
graphic difficulties respecting foreign words and
places seem to be at an end.

An order for a banquet to the celebrated Fran-
catelli, sent the other day by the orcl'uary telegraphic
method, came out thin

F.ank Atelli,
and, it is unnecessary to add, was seriously
delayed in consequence. 'no paragraph re-
cently quoted by a contemporary shows the havoc
made by the Incl. an telegraph of native names,
and few of us at home use the w'res frequently
without learning how easily a simple Eng"sh mes-
sage may be transposed and its meaning lost. By
the code under consideration these mistakes are im-
possible. At present it is necessary to use the Eng-
lish alphabet,-a stipulation leaving au enormous
margin ; but the system could be employed to any
extent and in any character or cypher. On the
26th of last June the following message was sent
through 2,374 miles of Atlantic cable by reversals
in this code, and transposed into Hindustani without
a single slip or repeat:—"4j7Jyah calm hi hanko
maloom nay Town yuddah pursand lii."
But the vast practical value of the invention !s
the greater speed and cheapness which can be se-
cured for ordinary messages. Not one of the morsels
of news published in the newspapers per Atlantic
wire but might be sent at a ,saving which is incal-
culable. The President's and the Queen's congra-
tulations we have seen coded, and they would have
been worked across at a reduction of nearly a hun-
dred per cent. in the number of words used. The
commercial items supplied by Mr. Reuter might, as
we have shown above, be transmitted day by day in
a few symbols by this method, and the public have
some right to hope for its general adoption, and the
acceleration of peace which would necessarily follow.
Captain Bolton has had long and successful ex-
perience in codifying and signalling, and, in con-
junction with Commler. Colomb, of the navy, tried
some important experiments for the Government a
couple of years ago. Their then object was to esta-
blish a system of conveying messages by signrl from
ship to shore at great distances in such a way rs
to supplement the electric telegraph, and it is
admitted on all hands that this was effectually
done. After many trials made independently these
gentlemen decided that to communicate effectively
by night and day the " dot" and " dash" alphabet
invented by Professor Morse for the electric tele-
graph must be tsed, and its application extended
to the flashing of lights and the sounds of a steam
whistle, bugle, and fog-horn. By these means it
was proved that communications of a character
hitherto unprecedented for accu-acy and speed could
be easily made at vast distances, and without the
operators being x:sible to each other.

The code now under consideration is, however,
exclusively designed for electric communications,
and the advantages it claims may be briefly sum-
marised : Gain of speed; simpl;city of transmission;
non-liability to mutilation in passing through
foreign countries ; facility of repetition ; and ap-
plicabi!ity to any language by translation without
loss of time. If these things are proved, as the
electricians declare they arc, and as the investiga-
tions conducted independently show, the public may
hope for the full. benefit of the invention, and that
the evils of blocked electric Ynes and consequent
delays shall be reduced to their reinitnurn.—Dally
Neuv,