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Ordinary Meeting, February 18th, 1862. 



J. P. Joule, LL.D., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



Henry Ashworth, Esq., The Oaks, Bolton, and Thomas 

 Clarke, M.D., Wilmslow, were elected Ordinary Members of 

 the Society. 



Mr. Dyer made some remarks relative to the first invention 

 of the electric telegraph, and read the following extract from 

 Arthur Young's " Travels in France " (2nd edition), London, 

 1794, which proved that electricity had been employed at 

 that early date for the purpose of transmitting intelligence. 



" In the evening to Mons, Lomond, a very ingenious and 

 inventive mechanic, who has made an improvement in the 

 jenny for spinning cotton. Common machines are said to 

 make too hard a thread for certain fabrics, but this forms it 

 loose and spongy. In electricity he has made a remarkable 

 discovery. You write two or three words on a paper; he 

 takes it with him into a room, and turns a machine enclosed 

 in a cylindrical case, at the top of which is an electrometer, a 

 small fine pith ball : a wire connects with a similar cylinder 

 and electrometer in a distant apartment, and his wife by 

 remarking the corresponding motions of the ball, writes down 

 the words they indicate, from which it appears that he has 

 formed an alphabet of motions. As the length of the wire 

 makes no difference in the effect, a correspondence might be 

 carried on at any distance ; within and without a beseiged 

 town for instance, or for a purpose much more worthy, and a 

 thousand times more harmless, between two lovers prohibited 

 Proceedings— Lit. & Phil. Society—No. U.— Session 1861-62. 



