The record-union., 1893-11-11
USE OF THE BBLIoGRAPH IN WAR
A System Which Has Proved of Value
in This Country and Abroad.

A System Which Has Proved of Value
in This Country and Abroad.
The West is the true home of the hello
graph. The Department OF Arizona,
during the troubles with Geronimo, made
what might have been termed a hello
graphic survey OF the seat of the Indian
troubles, and located on the maps the
available points of observation with di-
rection and compass bearing OF the other
visible stations. In this way, says the
Washington Post, the country was COW
cred with network OF heliOgraphists,
and the observers at each station kept
flashing into headquarters the latest
movements of the hostiles. The Indians.
under the crossfire of mysterious sun
signals. decided that the devil was in
league with the troopers, and their super
stitious fears, added 20 the constant har-
rying from the widely scattered parties
Of cavalry, brought them to terms, as
never could have been done but for the
use of the flash signals. The distances
covered by some of the photographic sta
tions were remarkable. Fifty or sixty
miles were considered nothing unusual,
and on one reach l25 miles were cov-
cred without an intervening station.
The invention of the heliograph be-
longs to England, and it has been used
extensively in her service in India and
Egypt, two countries where the atmo-
spheric 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 per-
feet in the world. The speed of the
heliograph is not so great as that of the
regular telegraph instrument, although
. alf lfNh nr
twelve words a minute is considered good
work. and is a vast Improvement over
the old method of signaling 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 flash lantern,
where messages are sent at night over
stretches Of from ten to fifteen miles,
though, under favorable conditions, with
night glasses, the messages have been
sent forty miles at single reach. The
old method i'll night signaling was to use
two torches after the manner OF flag sig
nails. One of these, known as the foot
torch, was placed on the ground in front
of the observer to give his location to the
receiver at the other end of the line, and
the s'fly torch'' on the end of the long
pole was used in waving out the words.
! This method was afterward superseded
! by the use of lanterns with dark shutters
worked by a key, as IN the telegraph
sounder, but these arrangements were
likely to get out of order in the field, and
now the energies of the corps are bent to
perfecting a brilliant lantern of light
weight, which can be secured by regu-
| lar Telegraph screen. The lanterns now
in use in the corps are fed with a mixture
of kerosene and sperm oil, but expert
ments are now going on with mag
nesium tape, fed before the reflector by
clockwoIk. 1t gives a very brilliant
light at an expense OF about 90 cents an
hour.
The heliograph is regarded by army
officers as one of the most practical and
useful inventions of modern military
science, and in the case of beleagured
city would furnish means of commune
cation with the outside world that would
discount balloons. carrier pigeons and
the magnetic telegraph, as the line could
not be cut by the enemy and the messen-
ger could not be captured or shot in
1 transit. In the case of Washington,
should that city ever chance to be block
AIDED, the heliograph would furnish a
very certain means OF communication for
a radius of thirty miles around, and a
signal observer stationed on top of the
monument could fash a message almost
! if not quite to Baltimore, If the condi-
1 tions were at ali favorable.