186 
REv. JOSEPH GLANVILL, RECTOR OF BATH. 
In a lecture delivered last April, a quotation is given from 
the ‘‘ Scepsis Scientifica ”’ of the above-named writer, and it is 
claimed for him that he first prophesied the working of wireless 
telegraphy. The passage runs thus: ‘‘ That men should 
confer at very distant removes by an extemporary inter- 
course is another reputed impossibility ; but yet there are 
some hints in natural operations that give some probability 
that it is feasible, and may be compact without unwarrantable 
correspondence with the people of the air. That a couple 
of needles equally touched by the same magnet, being set in 
two dyals, exactly proportioned to each other, and circum- 
scribed by the letters of the alphabet may effect this magnet, 
hath considerable authorities to avouch it. Let the friends. 
that would communicate take each a dyal, and having ap- 
pointed a time for their sympathetic conference, let one move 
his impregnate needle to any letter in the alphabet, and its 
effected fellow will precisely respect the same. So that would 
I know what my friend would acquaint me with, ’tis but 
observing the letters that are pointed at by my needle, and in 
their order transcribing them from their sympathising needle 
as its motion directs.”’ 
““Sceptis Scientifica’”’ was published in 1665, but is a re- 
casting of an earlier work, ‘ The Vanity of Dogmatizing,” 
issued in 1661; I am afraid the claim of originality, of 
being the first to divine the possibility of wireless telegraphy, 
cannot be granted to this Rector of Bath. He had several 
predecessors in this field. I copied for “‘ Notes and Queries ” 
from New Atlantis, begun by the Lord Verulam, Viscount 
St. Albans, and continued by R. H. Esquire (1660) a passage 
of similar import: ‘‘ Two needles of equal size being touched 
together at the same time with this Stone, and severally set on 
two tables with the alphabet written circularly about them ; 
two friends, thus prepared and agreeing on the time, may 
correspond at never so great a distance. For by turning the 
needle in one alphabet, the other in the distant table will by 
a secret sympathy turn itself after the like manner.” 
I quoted this on page 184 of gth series Vol. II., of ““ Notes and 
Queries,”’ as from a book in the School Library where I was Head 
Master, but on page 276 I was told it was merely a translation 
of a piece from ‘ Prolusiones Academice,’’ by Famianus 
Strada (1617), and also it was to be found in Hakewill’s 
, 
