640 THE INVENTORS OF' THE TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE. 



enteenth century by the Duke of York (afterward James II, of England), 

 who was at that time admiral of the English fleet. This was the 

 beginning- of the flag telegraph still used for communicating between 

 ships at sea, originally introduced for the purpose of directing the 

 man(euvers of the fleet. In 1684, Dr. TJobert Hook communicated to 

 the Iioyal Society of London a proposal for a telegraph. In this 

 method the signs were to consist of bodies of diflereiit shapes placed on 

 high poles in an exposed position. Some years afterwards a similar 

 method was proposed to the Academy of Sciences by M. Amontons, a 

 Frer.ch natural philosopher. In 1767 Mr. R. L. Edgeworth proposed 

 to telegraph by means of the arms of a wind-null, the positions of the 

 arms of the mill to be used to indicate the signals. In 1784, the same 

 author proposes to make the signals indicate numbers, and to interpret 

 by means of vocabularies of numbered words. In 1794, tlie semaphore 

 telegraph of M. Chappe was adopted by the French Government. This 

 telegraph consisted of a high post and two bars of timber, the middle 

 one pivoted to one end of the other, and the free end of this second 

 bar pivoted to the toy) of the post, so that the whole of the motions 

 could take place in a vertical plane. The positions, relative to the 

 vertical or horizontal, of the two arms indicated the signal. These and 

 other modifications of the semaphore have been at various times used, 

 and are still used on railways for train signals. 



The chief interest of these early telegraphs — a great many forms of 

 which might be enumerated — is in illustrating the fact that some means 

 of conveying intelligence to a distance quickly and without a messen- 

 ger has, from the earliest times, been recognized as of great importance. 

 It is well also to keep before us the things that have been done in 

 earlier times when we attempt to judge of the advances which have 

 been made by modern invention. 



The telegraph of to-day is almost entirely electrical, and in its pres- 

 ent form it is of comparatively recent growth. It may be well, how- 

 ever, in this branch also to glance briefly at the early history of the 

 subject. To begin with what we may call the fable i)eriod, we find in 

 the year 1617 an allusion in one of Strada's Prolusiones Academics to 

 the belief that there existed a sympathy between needles which had 

 been touched by a species of loadstone, which caused them always 

 to set parallel to each other if they were free to take up such positions. 

 Two such needles, it was said, could be used to convey intelligence to 

 any distance, because if they were pivoted on cards marked with let- 

 ters or words and the card properly placed, so that corresponding 

 letters occupied similar positions, when one needle was made to point 

 to any letter or mark the other needle would immediately point to the 

 corresponding mark on its card. The same belief is referred to by 

 Galileo in one of his dialogues in 1632, and again by the Abbe 

 Barthelemy in a work entitled "Voyage du Jeune Anarcharsis," pub- 

 lished in 1788. So far this may be said to be mere fable, but it 



