Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1899-05-28
TEE RICHMOND DISPATCH SUNDAY. NAY IS. 1899.

This cut Is small glass tube. partly
hlled In the centre with iron and nickel
hlngs. with wire running into the filings
at each end. Ordinarily. an electric
current will not pass from one wire 10
| the other through the filings, but II they
| are cohered together by the influence OF
the spark from the sending coil. they
! VIII admit the circuit TO close through
them. This being the Gaze. 1t is only
! necessary to connect the wires In circuit
with an ordinary telegraph relay, sound
err and battery.
Now place the coil at one point and the
coherer. or receiver at the point to which
the message is desired to be sent; then
have the sending and receiving instru-
ments properly attuned. one TO the other,
according TO the distance dividing them,
and we are ready to send a message.
CAUSE AND EFFECT.
The sending operator turns the electric
current through the induction coil. the
spark leaps from ball to ball, and the
mysterious waves go out In all directions
until they are impeded In their progress
by the coherer, or receiver. AS its i'm
pulse is here received, it causes the tele-
graph instrument attached thereto TO
make either dots or dashes in harmony
with those sent from the initial appara-
tus. Hence the Morse alphabet can be
readily used in transmitting messages,
just as is now done in all telegraph Offices.
l now propose TO accentuate this mar
velous exhibition of the power of cleo
tricity by giving a brief summary of
some of the principal electrical develop
ments leading up to this invention, du-
ring the past hundred years:
One hundred years ago, when Franklin
drew from the clouds, along the line of
his kite. the electric spark the idea was
conceived that electricity might be used
for telegraphy. Before this, Lesage had
worked a telegraph in Geneva by means
of fractional electricity, but the force had
but little power on long distance lines,
and even where used was uncomfortable
and useless for all practical purposes. At
the beginning of the present century the
votaic battery was Invented, and ten
years later Coke, in Philadelphia. invent
ed the chemical telegraph. Under his sys-
tenn two wires from galvanic battery
were made to approach each other I'm Is
cell of water When the circuit was
closed, the water between the opposite
poles, which were near each other, was
decomposed and bubble of hydrogen rose
to the surface In the same manner as
bubbles rise In Il glass of champagne,
and the observer seeing it knew that a
current of electricity was passing, and
that the bubble was the signal, but this,
too, died almost at its birth.
AN IMPOSSIBILITY THEN.
In 1929 Professor Barlow published in
England a scientific document, In which
he held that the electromagnetic tele-
graph was an impossbility, ard his opin-
ion seems to have been generally accept
ed by the scientific world. 1t was true
at that time
L Will now skip the valuable dis
coveries made by Professors Henry, Far
aday. Gauss, Weber, Steinheil, and many
others. and make a stop at Morse, who.
In 1914, invented the telegraph system as
1t is used at the present time. In 1872
Stearns perfected what Is known as tho
duplex system, by which it is made prac-
ucaDIe 10 send two messages over one
wire al the same time. Edison did bet
Ter still, by inventing a quadruplex sys-
TEN, by which four messages are sent over
one wire at the same time. Both
these inventions are in daily use by the
telegraph companies. Marconi takes a.
further step forward at the close of the
century, and says wires are not neces-
sary, and that Morse signals can be
sent to an unlimited number of receivers
at the same time, in the manner | have
endeavored TO explain.