Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1873-08-07
SELECT READING.
OUR TELEGRAPH SYSTEM.

OUR TELEGRAPH SYSTEM
When we look at a railroad map of
the United States, with its intricate
net work of black lines; and in imagi-
nation fill it out with its double tracks,
its functions and busy stations, its de-
pots and engine-houses, and then peo-
pie and WITTY the picture with its
swarming and hurrying life and its
gliding trains, ever making up, travers-
ing the field, breaking and forming
new combination, necessarily succeed
ing, passing, and crossing each other;
and when we add the bands of pioneers
surveyors, engineers, laborers, and con-
struction trains which form the fringe
Of this network, constantly extending
its 1neshes in every direction, and add
ing new intricacies to its most crowded
parts-the mind is almost bewildered
ed with the thought of such an immense
labyrinth, such complex organization.
If we could rise above the surface Of
the earth, and take in the whole coun-
try at birds-eye view, with visual
power to discern all the details, the
network of the telegraph would be
still more curious to look upon. We
should gee web spun Of two hundred
thousad miles of wire spread over the
face of the country like cobweb on
the grass, its threads connecting eve
ry important centre Of population, fes-
looming every great post-road, and
marking as with a silver lining
every railroad. We should observe
men, like spiders, busily spinning out
these lines in every direction, at the
rate of five miles an hour for every
working hour in the year. II we
should trace these threads back from
the circumference, we should find them
eonverging from every direction to Ger
tain central knots, like Chicago, St.
Louis, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Washington,
and many others of equal importance,
and thence running in great strands,
doubling and multiplying in number as
they approach the centre, but so arran-
ged as to bind every city and town to
all its neighbors, near and far. If the
eye, seeking to analyze this labyrinth,
should pursue the converging lines, it
would at last follow great band of
more than two hundred and fifty wires;
from every point Of the compass; run
ming mtosone great centre in the city
of New York, in the main Office of the
Western Union Telegraph Company.
Other minor centres would appear, but
this one would Immediately be recog-
nized as the great core or heart Of the
system. s.1,,.. ......I a..
If, now, such an observer could be
gifted with a magic power Of vision,
which man has not yet dreamed CT at
tanning, SO as to be enabled to see that
unseen and silent force we call cleo
tricity, and discern its instantaneous
actions and reaction from point to point
over this bewildering maze, the net
work of the telegraph would present a
spectacle far more amazing than that Of
the railroad system. 1as
AS the morning sun sends the hour
of nine across the continent, the offices
are filed with operators, an army Of
nearly ten thousand persons, engaged
in the various functions involved in the
service. The batteries, which we may
imagine to have been mostly slumber-
ing during the night, all awake to their
work, and the quiverings and scintilla-
ton Of electric action along the wires
would show the whole net work to be
now alive. On the great trunk lines
the last of the night work is finished,
the morning orders are circulated, and
around the circuit flash the humorous
salutation- which the operators exchange
with their unseen fellows, who seem to
be concealed at their elbow, but who
are in reality hundreds or thousands of
miles away Ten o'clock finds the Off
ces full of business. Outward bound
messages pour in to be dispatched, and
messages received are licked off by the
talking arrnature, to be written out and
sent off for delivery. By eleven o'clock
the press news begins to crowd upon
the operators, and then for two or three
hours the excitement il at its height.
Every one must be at his post every