The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-06-08
EARLY PRESENTIMENTS or TIE
ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH
FFonl Me LOndon NpeoLnLnr


From1te London Spectator
One of the most extraordinary facts In tbe
whole history of the sciences and arts. Is the
strong presentiment which existed for a cen.
Jury or more at the revival of learning that
magnetism would be used to convey intelli.
gence without regard to time or space. Just
as there is now a kind of presentiment that
electricity will supersede steam, or Just as il
was long thought that q philosophers stone
would one day be discovered to turn ali
things to gold, or an elixir of lie to Danish
old age, so the magic girdle which connects
land and land beneath the waves of the ocean
was not unknown to the scientific dreamers OF
the Baconian age.
Fifty wild things, indeed, are antioinated
for the one thing which turns out true. The
squaring of the circle, the perpettwn mobile.
sympathetic cures and the whole budget of
paradoXes, have agitated the brains and ex-
cited the hopes of unfortunate genius for
centuries back; but now these things are
acknowledged to be illusory and impossible
And yet that which might have seemed most
lllusory and impossible is an accomplished
fact.
In his very interesting account of the gradual
triumph of the electric telegraph Mr. Dodd
has referred to this strange presentiment and
has given quotation of the passage in the
Proluslones" OF Strada, published in 1917,
which describes in the most exact manner the
working of the telegraph in 1867 Let per
son who has used thelatest form of Mr.. Wheat
stones household letter telegraph try TO de-
scribe the procedure, and we think he could
not describe it better than in the following
words
''If you wish your distant friend to whom no
1etler can come, to learn some thing, take a
disk Tor dial), and write around the edge of it
the letters OF the alphabet in the order in
Vnno Wnlch children learn them, and in the centre
magnet, so that It may move and indicate what
ever letter you WISH"
similar dial being in the possession of
your friend -
'If you desire privately to speak 10 the friend
Whom some share OF the earth holds far from
you, lay your hand on the globe, and turn the
movable iron as you see disposed along the
margin OF all the letters which are required for
the words. Hither and tbither, turn the style
ana touch the letters, now this one and now
that. Wonderful to relate the far dis
tant friend sees the yolube iron tremble with
1ut S1t the touch OF any person, and run now
h1ther now thither; conscious he bends over H.
and marks the teaching OF the rod. When he
sees the rod stand still, he, in his turn, if he
thinks there is anything to be answered. in like
manner, by touching the various letters, writes
1t back to his friend"
No wonder that Strada, as he finishes this
description, should break forth into the
prayer
90 ntinam IN haec ratio scribendi prodeat usu!
Latronum verta insdlas, flu Mosque m morantes."
70 would that this method of writing
might be brought into use More safely and
swiftly would the letter be speeded, fearing
neither the snares OF robbers, nor the delaying
rivers"
MIR. Dodd suggests that in this wonderful
description Strada was merely giving play to
his imagination. In the midst of Strada's
classical trifes, it was doubtless a mere play
OF the imagination. When Addison, in the
Spectator (No 24l alludes to Strada's descrip-
tion, he speaks of it as "an account of
chimerical correspondence between two friends
by the help of a certain loadstone":-
.'If Monsieur Scudery," he continues, 'or any
other writer of romance, had introduced necro-
mancer, who is generally in the train OF knight
errant, making present to two lovers of a
couple OF these aforementioned needles, the
reader would not have been q little pleased to
have seen them corresponding with ono another
when they were guarded by spies and watches
or separated by castles and adventures. In the
meanwhile, if ever this invention should be
revived or put in practice, would propose that
upon the lovers dial plate there should be writ
Ten not only the four-and-twenty letters, but
several entire words, which have always place
\ in passionate epistles."
But though in the hands of poets and lite
rary men this notion of a space-destroying
telegraph was a fanciful chimera, among the
scientific men of the day it was gravely dis
cussed or mysteriously limited at. From about
4 the middle of the sixteenth to the end of the
seventeenth century it is alluded to in most
MWOrks on magnetism, and many other books
= of science. The Marquis of Worcester was a
diligent collector of all the ingenious notions
of his age, and he probably alludes to magne-
tism when he speaks of " intelligence at dis
Il tance communicative, and not limited to dis
tance nor by it the time prolonged. .-Drich'S
Wife of Worcester, p. 357.
b Sir Thomas Browne, in his "Pseudodoxia
3Epidemica," says of a supposed magnetic tele-
Rgraph that 'the conceit is excellent, and if the
sIefect would follow, somewhat divine" He
speaks of it as a conceit whispered thorow
the world with some attention, credulous and
! vulgar auditors readily believing it, and more
udiciOus and distinctive heads not altogether
feectipg it." But it would appear that, like
true fellow-countryman of Bacon, old Sir
Thomas submitted the thing to the test of ex-
pertinent, and though the needles were at the
distance of but half span, when one was
moved ''the other would stand like Hercules
pillars" He also raises several objections to
his supposed telegraph, such as that the
needles would move contrary ways, and the
difference of longitude would prevent two per-
eOns from watching their telegraph needles
exactly at the same moment.
Joseph GlanYill, in his "Scepsis Scientihca"
1861 devotes chapter to considering three
Instances of reputed impossbilities. One of
hese is the magnetic telegraph which he de-
cribes as composed of sympathetic needles
md an abecedarian circle. He mentions and
I ontroverts the objections of Sir Thomas
Browne, suggesting that "there are some
Lmts in natural operations that give us
probability that it is feasible" And it is