NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 163 



tion. After telegraphing each letter, these wheels come back to the starting 

 point, so that if the machine makes an error it is confined to one letter. In 

 another part of the arrangement, denominated the mutator, which is in the 

 main telegraphic circuit, there is such a combination with a permanent elec- 

 tro-magnet, that the greatest of all difficulties in stormy weather, that of 

 adjusting the magnet, is removed, as the mutator is self-adjusting to a great 

 extent, and a line of telegraph can be successfully operated by its use when 

 all other magnets are unmanageable. 



The inventor expects that these instruments, in addition to the ordinary 

 employment, will be extensively used by newspaper offices, merchants and 

 brokers, as they require no skill in handling, and cost but little. 



Curious anticipation of the discovery of the magnetic telegraph. The prin- 

 ciple of the magnetic telegraph, devised by Wheatstone, was foreshadowed 

 one hundred and twenty-eight years ago, in Bailey's Dictionary for 1730, 

 which contains the following : 



" Some authors write, that by the help of the magnet or loadstone persons 

 may communicate their minds to a friend at a great distance ; as suppose 

 one to be at London, and the other at Paris, if each of them have a circular 

 alphabet, like the dial-plate of a clock, and a needle touched with one mag- 

 net, then at the same time that the needle at London was moved, that at 

 Paris would move in like manner, provided each party had secret notes for 

 dividing words, and the observation was made at a set hour, either of the 

 day or of the night ; and when one party would inform the other of any 

 matter, he is to move the needle to those letters that will form the words, 

 that will declare what he would have the other know, and the other needle 

 will move in the same manner. This may be done reciprocally." 



Application of Steam to Telegraphic Purposes. Mr. Boggs, a well known 

 electrician of London, proposes to overcome the great obstacle to rapid tele- 

 graph communication, viz., the slowness of the recording process, by the 

 following invention: A series of gutta percha bands, about six inches 

 wide, and a quarter of an inch thick, are coiled on wheels or drums 

 arranged for the purpose. These bands are studded down both sides with a 

 single row of holes at short intervals apart. When a message is to be sent, 

 the clerks wind off these bands, inserting in the holes small brass pins, 

 which according to their combination in twos and threes (with black holes 

 between) represent certain words or letters. In this manner the message is, 

 as it were, " set up " in the bands with great rapidity, and if the number of 

 bands employed is sufficiently large say as numerous as the compositors 

 employed in a large printing office messages equal in length to five or six 

 columns of a newspaper could be set up and ready for transmission in the 

 course of a single hour. Of course this operation in no respect interferes 

 with the telegraph wire itself, which continues free for use until the bands of 

 messages are actually being despatched. The gutta percha bands, when 

 full, are removed to the instrument room, by a simple appliance, preventing 

 any derangement or falling out of the pins while being moved about. In 

 the instrument room the bands are connected with ordinary steam machinery, 

 by which they are drawn in regular order with the utmost rapidity between 



