Litchfield enquirer., 1873-12-25
From the New York Observer. Sun.TeIeQraphjng.

TIOHI Vuo NcW 1OTk ODScFfcT
 Sun-TeIegraphing.
 As I was reading in the Observer your Cliff House telegrapic experiences, l thought perhaps you would be interested ill some telegraphing I have witnessed the past season.
 ''To begin at the beginning" Three or four years ago Congress appropriated fifty thousand dollars year to be expend- ed pro rata in the triangulation of such States as should provide for themselves a geological survey; the work to be under the supervision of the United Coast Sur vey. New Hampshire, having already au- thorized such survey, which was being made under the able direction of Profes- sor Charles H. Hitchcock, geologist of Dartmouth College, was the first State to apply for triangulation. The applica- tion was granted at once, and the work put in charge of Professor E. T. Quimby, the eminent mathematician of Dartmouth College, who has ever since had charge of the northeastern department of this great work. The Professor starts out early in the summer with all his camping arrange ments, instruments and assistants-the latter selected from the various depart ments of the college. He goes into camp upon the most elevated point in his inn mediate field of observation, establishes signals upon other high points in view, takes and compares observations from these several points and putting aside these memoranda, from which to make his calculations after the season is over, he moves on to an adjacent field which has at least one point of observation in common with the last. Wherever he touches the coast he checks with the Coast Survey, and will do the same when he approaches Champlain and other lakes. And so, the work going on, the country will some day be correctly delineated up on maps before us or our descendants And while it is distinctly understood that no mountains are to be actnally thrown asunder and no rivers turned, yet it is presumed that the relative positions of things generally will appear somewhat changed from our understanding of them at present, to say nothing of the maps ill the days of good old Morse.
 Professor Quinby last point of observa- ton was upon the summit of Mount Moosi- lauk (old Moose Hillock). the grandest isolated peak not only of New Hampshire and New England, but. with one exception the grandest east of the Rocky Mountains. During his occupation of Moosilauk, one Sunday noon, we here in Hanover having just heard, as usual. an,excellent discourse in the old college church, his son came to my house and said that he very much desired a few moments conversation with his father, who was on Moosilauk, and that the day before he had sent word to his father that he would talk to him after church this day, from nay tower. He had I.Su hnl1 T1<N%%h %hax Tfof1 11o old instrument of the ancients for showing when the sun arrived at the tropics, but its modern namesake-which may be thus described. A piece of board two feet long and five inches wide serves as base, and there is an upright piece five inches square at one end, and another one little past the middle. At the other end of the board there is Q socket in which is placed the standard of swinging mirror, six inches square. In each of the upright pieces there is two inch hole with hair lines intersecting at the centre. Upon reaching the tower, Moosilauk, apparently basking in the sun, was peering over the top of Cube Mountain, and the whole northern landscape wore that charm that you so fully appreciated when you stood in the same place during your too brief visit here a year before. Mir. Quinby placed his heliotrope in position, just out side the tower, in the sun, the line between the points of intersection at the holes, be- ing extended (aimed), upon the summit of Moosilauk. The mirror was so adjusted that the sun was reflected through the holes and along the line described No one had ever been able to locate any part of Hanover from Moosilauk, but in mo- ment great signal light, clear, white, glittering, and brighter than thousand stars, blazed on the mountain top brighter than anything else save the great luminary, and was it not his image7 The Professor had seen our light and brought his helotrope to bear upon it with great precision- we being the centre of Q circle two or three rods ill diameter, beyond which his light could not be clearly seen. | The suns image as it left his instrument was two inches in diameter; yet, to us, it was apparently nearly as large as the god of day himself But this was only the be- ginning. The son had bowed, and the father responded. Now the son holds with his left hand the mirror so that it will throw the light exactly in the requir- ed direction, and with the right hand (which since the first signal has shaded his light), lets on the light in flashes long, CT or short, dots and dashes of the Morse alphabet in light. extending letters of light, telling the father of his home and neighbors, and of special news. The son pauses; and sooner than I can write it, the flashes of light appear upon the mountain flashes that the sun can readily read to us lettex by letter, andsword by word, and
 we know all. There Professor Quimby
 and his guests, Professors Young and
 Fairbanks, and his assistapts. sit in the
 clear cold air of the mountain top (they
 tell us to a degree how cold), in heavy vTappings, clustered about the heliotrope
 talking with their beloved Hanover fifty
 miles away, down the valley To us tht
 light appears to be Playing about them
 and radiating from them as from the saintly heads of the old masters, and tho
 hands of our friends are extended to ui
 yisibiy, in light, in salutations of lines o1 light, and their missives are in words oi
 light that bring giadness to our hearts
 The risen sun, the source and s4stsinel 1 under God of physical life, thus annihi
 lates time and space that we may have in: stant personal converse.
 And SO, in the stiffness of that serene Sabbath, we were led to contemplate the re-appearing of the great Sun of Right.
 epusness" .swith healing in his wings,
 when, ip His light. we esshall see and know
 Hfw, yXDaS-.,r.