IMPROVEMENTS IN RAPID COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN DISTANT PLACES AND COUNTRIES
Year: 1852

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Andrew Crestadoro at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 13th November 1852.
(Void by reason of notice to proceed not having been given within
the time prescribed by the Act.)
I, Professor ANDREW CRESTADORO, of Genoa, in Italy, but now
resident in Darlington Place, Vauxhall, in the County of Surrey,
do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN RAPID COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN DISTANT PLACES AND COUNTRIES" to
be as follows:-
My said Improvements consist,-1st, in the discovery that, in
transmitting rapid communications, the velocity of sound, when
applied in a proper manner, can supersede, with great advantages,
the electric or magnetic telegraph, as it is at present in use;
2d, consequently in a new application of an old and well-known
principle, that is to say, the action of speaking or producing sounds
through suitable speaking-pipes and apparatus, to a purpose and
object to which hitherto they have not been applied, viz., to tele-
graphic and other purposes, or rapid communications between
distant places and countries. The said new application, in con-
junction with the said discovery, constitutes the novelty of my said

page_text: improvements, and the following are the peculiar principles on
which they are based. The last results of the experiments made
by the philosophers to determine the electric speed, show that
the electric current passes through a copper wire of an inch in
diameter, at the rate of about 12,000 miles in one second; while it
is found that sound, in dry air, at the temperature of 32° Fahrenheit,
travels at the rate of only 1090 feet, or 363 yards, per second. If
we compare such velocities of the two fluids, as stated above, without
taking into proper consideration all the elements, indeed the velocity
of the sound would appear a trifle when in parallel with the won-
derful rate of the electric fluid. But on close examination it will
be found that we must take into due account the following im-
portant clement; viz., that the sonorous vibrations traverse the air,
not only through a single line, but in every direction through all the
space contained within the given radius of 1090 feet, whilst the electric
current traverses only such a cubic content as it is represented by a
copper wire of an inch in diameter, and 12,000 miles long.
The consequence is, that if it be truc that in a rotunda or sphe-
rical hall of 1090 feet radius, the sound produced at the centre
would reach every point of the circumference in one second, then
the sonorous vibrations would have traversed not less than
5,424,617,475 cubic feet of air in one second; whilst the electric fluid
would have traversed, in the same time, only (inch) 2×12,000 miles,
Whence it follows,
T
or 1320 cubic feet of metallic substance.
that wonderful as it is the speed of the electric fluid, it should
be 4,109,558 times as much if it had to pervade, in a second
of time, as many cubic feet of metallic substance as there are
cubic feet of air pervaded in the same time by the sound. It is
but fair to observe, that metal is a substance whose density is far
different from that of such a substance as the air; and that if the
electric conducting wire was composed of insulated air, in lieu of
being made of metallic substance, the sound would be fairly beaten
by the electricity in speed. This is true: and such is just the case
in the velocity of light; which light, according to my opinion, is
nothing but electricity, when having for a conducting medium a

page_text: wire extremely thin and elastric, the air, and travelling for that
reason at such a fabolous speed as it is well known. But such facts
do not interfere with the question to which my said improvements
relate. On the contrary, these improvements are fully supported and
confirmed by the very same facts. That is to say, the invention of
insulating wires for the purpose of transmitting at great distance the
electric action, shows that if, by a corresponding insulating process,
viz., by means of suitable pipes and apparatus, a sound be prevented
from spreading and losing itself in the open space, it can be conveyed
to as great distances as are in accordance, not with a simple abstract
idea of a distance of 1090 feet, but with the concrete fact as it is
revealed by experience; viz., of the sound pervading such quantity
of air in one second as it is contained within 1090 feet radius from
the origin of the sound. Which concrete fact, if correctly examined,
leads to the following results. A pipe, say of an inch internal
diameter, and 3,000 miles long, or far more than the distance
between England and America, contains 5,390 cubic fect, equal to a
hall twenty-three times smaller than the Rotunda, Bank of England,
which is 126,477 cubic feet; or eighteen times smaller than the
Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, which is 98,192 cubic fect.
Now, as the sound produced at any point of the interior of the
Rotunda, Bank of England, would reach every other point of the
same interior in less than one second, the same quantity of space
being converted into such a different shape as it is represented by
a pipe equal in length to many times more than the distance bc-
tween Europe and America, the same phenomenon of the sound will
take place.
My said improvements assert the principle that it is
the cubic quantity and not the cubic quality of space which is the
proper measure, in the first instance, of the amount of air, and
consequently of the amount of velocity of the sound through the
same; that is to say, the cubic content being the same, the phe-
nomenon of the sound must be the same. The Freemasons' Hall
is a short pipe of a greater thickness, as well as a pipe many times
3000 miles long and of an inch interior diameter is a small-
roomed hall shaped into its greatest possible length.

page_text: The manner in which my said improvements are to be performed,
so as to be brought into practical operation, consists simply in the
action of speaking or producing concerted sounds through insulating
pipe or pipes, made of lead or tin, or other suitable material, and laid
down across the intended distance, the pipe or pipes being pro-
vided at each end with suitable speaking or sounding apparatus, or
terminating at each end, in a suitable cabinet or chamber wherein
the intended persons or operators are respectively admitted to send
and receive respectively the message, by means of speaking or pro-
ducing concerted sounds, and listening or putting the same down in
writing respectivelly; the door or entrance of each chamber being
suitably shut during the transmission of the message, so as the action
of speaking or producing sounds shall be better insulated from the
outside, and transmitted undisturbed, and without loss, to its in-
tended destination. Astonishing as the rapidity of telegraphic
messages, as at present dispatched, may appear, it is not, for an
instant, to be compared with a telegraph as fast and extremely simple
as the human voice can dictate, a telegraph which would enable
the English in London to converse with the American in New
York, as two persons in the Freemason's Hall can talk together.
The Queen's speech, on the opening of Parliament yesterday, was
forwarded to the Continent, through the submarine telegraph, at
the rate of forty words a minute; while the human voice can speak
great many times faster, to say nothing of the extreme simplicity
of such machinery as the human voice, when compared with the
electric instruments and apparatus, and with the uncertainty at-
tached to the same, from meteorological disturbances.
Having, as above, given a Provisional Specification of my said im-
provements, I wish it particularly to be understood that I set up no
claim to the discovery of such speaking pipes and apparatus as are at
present in use. What I claim is, the application of similar contri-
vances to a new purpose, to which hitherto they have not been
applied, viz., to telegraphic purposes, or rapid communications
between distant places and countries, in such a scale, and to such
an extent, as it is consistent with the correct application of the fact

page_text: that sonorous vibrations do pervade such quantity of air in one
second, as it is revealed by experience. Also, I wish it particularly
to be understood, that I do not mean to convey and describe all
and every part and mode of operation that said improvements are
admissible in the practice thereof, as I reserve to myself all changes
and minute details that may arise in practice, and in the carrying
out thereof, not departing from the mean features and principles
forming the base & character of this Invention.