The Portland daily press., 1893-08-25
WORKING THE HELIoGRAPH.
Army officers Regard the System as OF
Great Importance in Military Science

The West is the true home of the
heliogfaph. The department of Arizona,
during the recent troubles over the late
lamented Geronimo, made what might
have been termed photographic survey
of the seat of the Indian troubles, and
located on the maps the available points
of observation, with the direction and
compass bearing of the other visible
stations. In this way the country was
covered with a network of Photograph
posts, and thesobservers at each station
kept flashing into headquarters the latest
movements of the hostiles.
The Indians, under the cross fire of
mysterious sun signals, decided that the
devil was in league with the troopers,
and the .superstitiouss fears, added to
the constant hurrying from the widely
scattered parties of cavalry brought them
to terms, as never could have been done
but for the use of the fash signals.
The distance covered by some of the
helioeraph stations were remarkable.
Fifty or sixty miles were considered
nothing unusual, and on one reach 1876
miles were covered without an interven-
ing station.
The invention of the Photograph
belongs to England, and it has been used
extensively in her service in India and
Egypt, two countries where the atmos-
pheric conditions are very much as in our
own arid West. The instrument was first
brought to America in 1874, and like a
great many other inventions of John
Bull, was greatly improved by his
Yankee cousin, so that the instrument
now in use in our signal corps is con-
sidered by experts the most nearly perfect
in the world.
The speed Of the heliograph is not SO
great as that of the regular telegraph in
strument, although the Morse alphabet
is used. Ten or twelve words a minute
is considered good work, and is a vast
Improvement over the old method Of sig
mailing by flags, with which from three
to four words minute was the most
that could be done.
An ally of the heliograph now in use
by the signal corps is the three flash Ian
tern, whereby messages are sent at night
over stretches of from ten to fifteen
miles, though under favorable con-
ditions, with night glasses, the messages
have been sent for forty miles at single
reach The old method in night signal
ling was to use two torches, after the
manner of flag signals. One of these,
the ground in front of the observer, to
give his location to the receiver at the
other end of the line, and the " fly torch, !"
on the end of the long pole, was used in
waving out the words This method
was afterwards superseded by the use of
lanterns with dark shutters worked by
a key, as in the telegraph soqnder, but
these arrangements were likely to get
out of order in the field, and now The
energies of the corps are bent to perfect
ing brilliant lantern, of light weight,
which can be obscured by a regular
heliograph screen. The lanterns now in
use in the corps are fed with mixture
of kerosene and sperm oil, but expert
ments are now going on with mageslum
lamp that burns a magnesium tape, fed
before the reflector by clock work. 1t
gives very brilliant light at an expense
of about fifty cents an hour.
The Photograph is regarded by army
officers as one of the most practical and
useful inventions of modern military
science, and in the case of a beleaguered
city would furnish means of communica-
ton with the outside world that would
balloons, carrier pigeons, and
the magnetic telegraph, as the line could
not be cut by the enemy and the mes
senger could not be captured or shot in
In the case of Washington,
should this city ever chance to be block
AIDED, the Photograph would furnish a
very certain means of communication for
a radius of thirty miles around, and a
signal observer stationed on top of the
could flash messages almost
if not quite to Baltimore if the condition
were at all favorable.