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LX. Description of a Camp Telegraph, invented ly Knight 

 Spencer, Esq. Secretary to the Surry Institution. 



To Mr. Tilloch. 



Sir, Jl he important advantages resulting to the naval 

 service from the introduction of the telegraph by Sir Home 

 Popham, now universally adopted, are too well known to 

 be here insisted upon. 



That telegraphic signals have been productive of great 

 advantages to land armies, for more than 3000 years, is very 

 easily proved. 



That the most important advantages have resulted to the 

 French arms, from the use of the telegraph, in the present 

 age, is too well authenticated to be doubted. 



That commanders of British armies have felt the abso- 

 lute necessity of adopting some mode of telegraphic com- 

 munication, is proved by the late campaign in Sicily, and, 

 the present campaign in Spain. 



That many attempts have been made to introduce the 

 telegraph into our land-service universally, cannot be ques- 

 tioned. 



To what cause, then, is it to be attributed, that to the 

 present moment this powerful instrument remains to British 

 armies (generally speaking) nearly a useless invention ? . 



The only rational answer to this question seems to be, 

 that, hitherto, no practicable system has been offered, and 

 the attempts to introduce it must, probably, have failed; — 

 either, from the intricacy of the machines, or, the difficulty 

 of transporting them into situations where they could be 

 used. 



Whatever cause may have hitherto retarded its intro- 

 duction, it will hardly for a moment be contended, that, 

 were a telegraph produced as certain in its operations as 

 the present fixed telegraph, and at the same time so sim- 

 ple and portable as to require no separate establishment, 

 either for its transport or management, it would not be a 

 most important acquisition in the field. 



With this conviction on my mind, I have endeavoured 

 to obviate the supposed difficulties ; and the result, which 

 I call my Camp Telegraph, 1 request permission to lay 

 before the public through the medium of your respectable 

 Magazine ; — indulging the hope, that it may meet the at- 

 tention of those who have sufficient iufluence to bring the 

 subject fairly under the consideration of his majesty's^ go- 

 Vol. 36. No. 151. Nov. 1810. X vemment. 



