The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-12
ANCIENT TELEGRAPH SYSTEMS.
Various Methods for Carrying Messages
Long Distances Were Known.

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Long Distances Were Known.
The old telegraph stations of France are
interesting relics of the past, and, where
they have been allowed to remain, form a
feature of the landscape. They were OF
two kinds. the square towers and the round
towers. They consisted of two stories, and
the index signals, of wood or light iron,
were mounted ON the top of pole on the
roof A ladder ran up this pole, so that
the signals might be reached and moved
by hand. The telegraphers were provided
with telescopes, and there was always
somebody on watch on the roof to note
signals made at the neighboring stations.
The progress of message at night was
naturally slower than the day transmission.
The words were fewer at night also, be-
cause the small lanterns affixed to the in
dices could occupy only certain number
of positions without being extinguished,
says Cassell's Magazine.
The first Bonaparte extended the line of
these stations to Milan, then to Mayence,
in Germany. They went no further. Soon
the French army began to retreat to the
land from which they came, and as they
retired they fired their telegraph posts to
prevent the enemy from using them.
One writer has stated that Alexander s
quickest means of sending messages was
by fast horses, and that Napoleon, two
millenniums later, was no better off. This
informant, like millions to-day, was igno-
rant of aerial telegraphy's half century of
existence.
AS with electrical telegraphy so with
aerial telegraphy the early attempts were
legion. AS far back as the seventeenth
century a scientific attempt at long-dis-
lance telegraphy was made by the sa-
want, Amontons. The author Fontelle
has written OF these experiments. He
states that the apparatus was a clever
continuance, permitting of the transmits
sion Of message from Paris across the
Alps to Rome in the then incredibly brief
time of three hours, and this without any,
body knowing the nature of the message
between the Italian and French capitals.
The procedure consisted III placing at
several consecutive spots men who, having
perceived through long-distance telescopes
certain signals, made at one post, trans
mitted such signals to the next post, and
so on from post to post, and these different
signals were so many letters of an alphabet
of secret ciphers. The key to these was
known only to the parties interested at
Paris and at the city 1000 miles away. The
maximum range of the telescope consti-
tuted the distance between the different
posts, the fewer of which the better for
rapid transmission. Some experiments
were successfully made over little stretch
of country, but the vice-consumed func-
tionaries of the time pronounced the
Amontons project ''impracticable, and
the discouraged inventor abandoned the
idea.
Cesar, in his Commentaries" relates
how, during the invasion of Gaul, the in
habitants gave warning of his approach
by burning fires at night. These signals
were called 'huchees." In the daytime the
old Gauls resorted to cries. Thus, num-
Der of men, stationed at certain intervals
apart over long stretch of country, would
shout their warnings from one to the
other. This species of mouth-to-mouth
telegraphy answered SO well and the dis
patches travelled SO quickly that Caesar
states how, between the rising and the
setting of the sun, the natives could send
a verbal message distance Of over fifty
leagues.