Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1876-09-28


next year? The United States
Naval Observatory is full of the
very highest science, under the
command of Admiral Davis. If to
get ON to precision and mutation |
had resolved to omit telling you
that | had there, in an instrument
for measuring photographs of the
Transit of Venus shown me by
Professor Harkness Ga young
Scotchman attracted into the
United States naval service) seen,
for the first time in an astronomical
instrument, a geometrical slide
the verdict on the disaster on board
the Thunderer, published while l
am writing this address, forbids me
to keep any such resolution, and
compels me to put the question
is there in the British navy, or in
a British steamer, or in a British
land-boiler, another safety valve so
constructed that by any possibility,
at any temperature, or under any
stress, it can jam? And to say
that if there is, it must be instantly
corrected or removed. Can /
go on to procession and nuta-
ton without a word of what
l saw in the great Exhibition
of Philadelphia In the United
States government part Of it Pro-
fessor Hilgard showed me the mea-
suring rods of the United States
coast survey with their beautiful
mechanical appliances for end mea-
surement, by which the three base
lines of Maine, Long Island and
Georgia were measured with about
the same accuracy as the most ac-
curate scientific measurers, whether
of Europe or America, have at
tanned in comparing two metre or
yard measures. In the United
States Telegraphic Department |
saw and heard Elisha Gray's splen-
didly worked out electric telephone
actually sounding four messages
simultaneously on the Morse code,
and clearly capable Of doing yet
four times as many with very mod
crate Improvements of detail; and
| saw Edison'S automatic telegraph
delivering l015 words in 81 seconds;
this done by the long.neglected
electro-chymical method Of Balm,
long ago condemned in England to
the helot work of recording from a
relay, and then turned adrift as
needlessly delicate for that. In the
Canadian Department | heard "To
be or not be ," there's the rub,
through an electric telegraph wire
but scorning monosyllables, the
electric articulation rose to higher
flights, and gave me messages taken
at random from the New York
newspapers: IS. S. Cox has ar
rived" Il failed to make out the S,
S. Cox), "the city of New York,
Senator Norton" "The Senate
has resolved to print a thousand
copies" " "The Americans in Lon.
don have resolved to celebrate the
coming Fourth of July" All this
my own ears heard spoken to me
with unmistakable distinctness by
the thin circular disc armature O
lust such another little electro
magnet as this which | hold in my
hand. The words were shouted
with a clear and loud voice by my
colleague-judge Professor Watson
at the far end of the line, holding
his mouth close to stretched
membrane, such as you see before
you here, carrying a little piece o
soft iron, which was thus made tt
perform in the neighborhood of al
electromagnetic in circuit with tht
line motions proportional to thC
sonorifc motions of the air. This
the greatest by far of all the mar
wells of the electric telegraph, il
due to a young countryman of oul
own, Mr.. Graham Bell, of Edin
burgh and Montreal and Boston
! now becoming naturalized either
of the United States. Who can bu
admire the hardihood of invention
which devised such very sligh
means to realize the mathematical
:, conception that, if electricity is K
convey all the delicacies of quality
which distinguish articulate speech
the strength Of its current mus
. vary continuously, and, as nearly
, as may be, in simple proportion t
5 the velocity of an article of air en-
gagged in constituting the sound
: The patent Museum of Washing
2 ton, an institution of which tht
= nation is Justly proud, and thu
benefcent working of the United
States patent laws deserve notice il
/ the section of the British Associa
= ton concerned with branches 0.
S science to which nine-tenths of al
? the useful patents of the worlC
owe their foundations. l wa
/. much struck with the prevalence o
4 patented inventions in the Exhi
S bition; it seemed to me that every
| good thing deserving patent wa
d patented. l asked the inventor o
h a very good invention, why don
IN q TT