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mechanism that could be put in the hands even of a mere child. 

 The interval might have been longer than two centuries between 

 Strada's idea and the realization of it by Lomond, had Galvani's 

 experiments not led to an enlarged knowledge of electricity, 

 and to a reasonable conjecture that magnetism was a subordi- 

 nate form of electricity, as well as light and heat. Strada's 

 conception of the feasibility of employing the agency of mag- 

 netismfor the transmission of intelligence could hardly fail to be 

 suggestive of similar projects and appliances ; and these we find 

 practically carried into execution in the construction of the first 

 electric telegraph we have any account of, — that of a French 

 mechanic, made in Paris about sixty years ago. I find an ac- 

 count of this first practical application of electricity to telegra- 

 phic purposes noticed in Mr. Arthur Young's Travels in France, 

 in the years 1787, 1788, and 1789. At page 135 of the first 

 volmne, in referring to the various scientific inventions he had 

 seen in France, he observes : — ' Many of the discoveries that 

 have enlarged the bounds of science have been the result of 

 means seemingly inadequate to the end, — the energetic exer- 

 tions of ardent minds bursting fi-om obscurity, and breaking 

 the bonds inflicted by poverty, perhaps by distress. I visited 

 (at Paris) M. Lomond, a very ingenious mechanic, who has 

 made an improvement of the jenny for spinning cotton. . . . 

 In electricity M. Lomond 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 a similar cylinder and electrometer in a distant 

 apartment, and his wife, by remarking the corresponding mo- 

 tions 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 eflfect, a corres- 

 pondence might be carried on to any distance — within or without 

 a besieged town, for instance — or for a purpose much more 

 worthy, and a thousand times more harmless, — between two 



