ELECTKICITY. 



279 



Mustaplia Bey, the aide-de-camp of the Sultan, 

 was promulgated on September 30th. 



In September reports of difficulties between 

 Egypt aud Abyssinia attracted considerable at- 

 tention. According to a dispatch from Cairo, 

 4,000 men were sent by the Egyptian Govern- 

 ment to the frontier, toree'nforce the Egyptian 

 troops stationed there, with orders to repel by 

 force of arms every attempt of Prince Kassai 

 to invade Egypt, but they were enjoined to 

 avoid crossing the frontier. On the other 

 hand, Prince Kassai, or, as he is called in the* 

 accounts from Abyssinia, King Johannes, sent 

 General Kirkham as his special messenger to 

 England, with letters for the Queen, asking the 

 intervention of England against Egypt. The 

 ambassador had also letters for France, Eussia, 

 and Germany. General Kirkham formerly 

 served in the English army, and accompanied 

 the English expedition against Abyssinia as ar- 

 my agent. His rank of general is derived from 

 an Abyssinian patent. When the English ex- 

 pedition left Abyssinia, Kirkham offered his 

 services to Prince Kassai. The English au- 

 thorities at first refused to give him permission 

 to enter the Abyssinian service, but subse- 

 quently consented that he should drill the 

 troops of Kassai. At the same time, the Eng- 

 lish commander sold to Kassai 12 howitzers 

 and 800 muskets. Kirkham at first drilled a 

 division of 100 men, and the results he obtained 

 were so satisfactory that soon Kassai placed 

 2,400 picked men under his instruction. These 

 troops, under the command of Kirkham, se- 

 cured the victory of Kassai over his rival Go- 

 bazie, and enabled him to proclaim himself and 

 to be crowned King of Ethiopia. Of the origin 

 of the difficulties between Egypt and Abys- 

 sinia, Kirkham gave, in communications to the 

 English Government and the English press, the 

 following account: The Khedive had appointed 

 Werner Munzinger, a Swiss scholar, who had 

 lived for twelve or thirteen years in that re- 

 gion, Governor of Massowah. While Kassai was 

 engaged in quelling the insurrection of some 

 native chiefs, 3,000 Egyptian troops were sent 

 to Massowah, with the aid of whom Munzinger 

 invaded the country of the Bogos, a district 

 about 220 miles long, and 80 miles wide. Mun- 

 zinger is married to the daughter of an Abys- 

 sinian chief, speaks all the languages of the 

 country, and has a considerable influence upon 

 the natives. After conquering the district of 

 the Bogos, he fortified his position, and await- 

 ed an attack from Kassai, who, however, pre- 

 ferred to send General Kirkham to Europe, to 

 implore the aid of the Christian powers against 

 the Khedive of Egypt, whom he charges with 

 the intention of annexing the entire country to 

 Egypt, of bringing the Abyssinian Christians 

 under Mohammedan rule, and of securing an 

 important road for the slave-trade. 



ELECTKICITY. Telegraphy without Insu- 

 lation. It is shown, by Mr. H. Highton, that 

 water itself is so perfect an insulator for elec- 

 tricity of low tension that a long wire or a 



plate of copper, charged with electricity, in 

 that condition, and submerged, will retain the 

 charge for hours, and, indeed, quite as obsti- 

 nately as the glass of a Leyden jar retains a 

 charge of high tension. He proposes to use 

 as his instrument for telegraphy, on naked 

 submerged wire, a light slip of gold-leaf, 

 weighing from -j-^fh to ^^th of a grain, 

 acted on by a powerful electric magnet, and 

 with its motions optically magnified. The 

 delicacy of this arrangement is so great that 

 simply looking at a thermopile will transmit 

 a visible signal through the resistance of the 

 Atlantic cable, and a kiss or grasp of the hand, 

 a very strong signal. The use of the instru- 

 ment gives an opportunity of employing elec- 

 tricity of the very lowest tension, which, be- 

 sides other advantages, has a much less ten- 

 dency to escape by faults of the wire than 

 electricity of a higher tension. Mr. Highton 

 asserts that a fault which caused the disap- 

 pearance of all visible signals through a Thom- 

 son's speaking galvanometer, with a resistance 

 of 500 units, or about 125 miles of Atlantic 

 cable, would still allow intelligible signals to 

 be transmitted, by his invention, with 10,OCO 

 units, or 2,500 miles, of resistance. When in- 

 creased sensitiveness is required, the only thing 

 necessary is to increase the force of the elec- 

 tro-magnet at the receiving end. The author 

 concludes that, instead of the hundreds of 

 thousands of units of insulation of the present 

 cables, it would be feasible to work through a 

 cable having only a single unit of insulation ; 

 and, if greater insulation were desirable, a wire 

 might be used presenting much more resist- 

 ance to the currents, such as a steel wire, 

 possessing more strength, and much cheaper, 

 than copper, and that, electrostatic induction 

 being less injurious, and much cheaper, with 

 less gutta-percha, cables might be used costing 

 not more than a fifth or sixth of the present 

 prices, and thus telegraphy be made much 

 more available for the mass of mankind. 



The Aerial Telegraph. Congress hcs 

 passed, and the President has signed, a bill 

 organizing a company with authority to use 

 the principle of aerial telegraphy, claimed to 

 have been discovered by Mr. Loomis. No full 

 description of the new method has been given 

 to the public. It is reported that Mr. Loomis 

 has succeeded in sending electric signals, 

 through considerable distances, without the 

 aid of any other conductor than an elevated 

 stratum of air. His most successful experi- 

 ment is said to have been made in the Blue 

 Ridge Mountains. He flew a kite from one of 

 the highest spurs of the range, using, instead 

 of packthread, a small copper wire, by which 

 he maintained a ground connection. From 

 another spur or peak, 20 miles distant, he 

 caused another kite, similarly connected with 

 the earth, to be sent up. When the two kites 

 had reached a suitable height (being then in 

 an electrical stratum of the atmosphere, as the 

 discoverer explains), it was found practicable 



