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XVI. On the Invention of the Telegraph, with a Defcription of 

 that propofed by Dr. HOOKE. 



•A. HE idea of conveying intelligence by means of fignals, 

 both during the day and in the night-time, is of very great 

 antiquity, as appears by the teftimony of feveral ancient 

 authors ; and there is reafon to believe that fome fort of tele- 

 graph was in ufe even among the Greeks. The deflruction of 

 Troy was certainly known in Greece very foon after it took 

 place, and before any perfon had returned from it. A Greek 

 play begins with a fcene, in which a watchman defcends 

 from the top of a tower in Greece, and gives information 

 that Troy is taken : " I have been looking out thefe ten 

 years," fays he, " to fee when that would happen, and this 

 night it has been done.'' A night telegraph is alfo exprefsly 

 mentioned by Polybius *, who in his tenth book gives a very 

 circumftantial account in what manner the letters of the 

 alphabet may be expreffed by means of torches. 



It does not appear, however, that this or any other method 

 of the ancients was ever brought into general ufe, or that 

 any of the moderns had thought of fuch a machine as the 

 telegraph till the year 1663, when the Marquis of Worcefter 

 in his Century of Inventions afRrmed, that " he had dis- 

 covered a method by which, at a window, as far as the eye 

 can difcover black and white, a man might hold difcourfe 

 with his correfpondent without noife made, or notice taken; 

 being according to occafion given or means afforded, ex re 

 nata, and no need of provifion before hand, though much 

 better if forefeen, and courfe taken by mutual confent of 

 parties." This could be effected only by a telegraph, which 

 in the next fentence is declared to have been rendered fo 

 perfect, that by means of it the correfpondence could be 

 carried on " by night as well as by day, though as dark as 

 pitch is black." 



* Lib. x. cap. 40. 



Forty 



