Sept. 20, 1888] 



NA TURE 



495 



novel premises. The whole subject is going to be thoroughly 

 discussed at this meeting. 



We are now obtaining much valuable information about the 

 nature of lightning from photography. We learn that it does 

 not, as a rule, take that zigzag course conventionally used to 

 represent a flash on canvas. Its course is much more erratic and 

 sinuous, its construction more complicated, and pictures have 

 been obtained of dark flashes whose raison d'etre has not yet 

 been satisfactorily accounted for. The network of telegraph 

 wires all over the country is peculiarly subject to the effects of 

 atmospheric electricity, but we have completely mastered the 

 vagaries of lightning discharges in our apparatus and cables. 

 Accidents are now very few and far between. 



The art of transmitting intelligence to a distance beyond the 

 reach of the ear and the eye, by the instantaneous effects of 

 electricity, had been the dream of the philosopher for nearly a 

 century, when in 1837 it was rendered a practical success by the 

 commercial and far-sighted energy of Cooke, and the scientific 

 knowledge and inventive genius of Wheatstone. The metallic 

 arc of Galvani (1790) and the developments of Volta (1796) had 

 been so far improved that currents could be generated of any 

 strength ; the law of Ohm (1828) had shown how they could be 

 transmitted to any distances ; the deflection of the magnetic 

 needle by Oersted in 1819, and the formation of an electro- 

 magnet by Ampere and Sturgeon, and the attraction of its 

 armature, had indicated how those currents could be rendered 

 visible as well as audible. 



Cooke and Wheatstone in 1837 utilized the deflection of the 

 needle to the right and the left to form an alphabet. Morse 

 used the attraction of the armature of an electro-magnet to 

 raise a metal style to impress or emboss moving paper with 

 visible dots and dashes. Steinheil imprinted dots in ink on the 

 different sides of a line on paper, and also struck two bells of 

 different sound to affect the ear. Breguet reproduced in minia- 

 ture the actual movements of the semaphore, then so much in 

 use in France ; while others rendered practical the favourite idea 

 of moving an indicator around a dial, on which the alphabet and 

 the numerals were printed, and causing it to dwell against the 

 symbol to be read — the A, B, C instrument of Wheatstone in 

 England, and of Siemens in Germany. Wheatstone conceived 

 the notion of printing the actual letters of the alphabet in bold 

 Roman type on paper — a plan which was made a perfect success 

 by Hughes in 1854. 



At the present moment the needle system of Cooke and 

 Wheatstone, as well as the A, B, C dial telegraph, are very largely 

 used in England on our railways and in our smaller post-offices. The 

 Morse recorder and the Hughes type-printer are universally used 

 on the Continent ; while in America the dot-and-dash alphabet of 

 Morse is impressed on the consciousness through the ear by the 

 sound of the moving armature striking against the stops that 

 limit its motion. In our larger and busier offices the Morse 

 sounder and the bell system, as perfected by Bright, are very 

 largely used, while the Press of this country is sup jlied with news 

 which is recorded on paper by ink dots and dashes at a speed 

 that is almost fabulous. 



Sir Willian Thomson's mirror — the most delicate form of the 

 needle system — where the vibratory motions of an imponder- 

 able ray of light convey words to the reader ; and his recorder, 

 where the wavy motion of a line of ink spirted on paper by the 

 frictionless repulsion of electricity perform, the same function, are 

 exclusively employed on our long submarine cables. 



Bakewell, in 1848, showed how it was possible to reproduce 

 facsimiles of handwriting and of drawing at a distance ; and, in 

 1879, E. A. Cowper reproduced one's own .handwriting, the 

 moving pen at one station so controlling the currents fl jwing on 

 the line wire that they caused a similar pen to make similar 

 motions at the other distant station. Neither of these plans, 

 the former beautifully developed by Caselli and D'Arlincourt, 

 and the latter improved by Robertson and Elisha Gray, have yet 

 reached the practical stage. 



The perfection of telegraphy has been attained by that chief 

 marvel of this electrical age — the speaking telephone of Graham 

 Bell. The reproduction of the human voice at a distance, 

 restricted only by geographical limits, seems to have reached 

 the confines of human ingenuity ; and though wild enthusiasts 

 have dreamt of reproducing objects abroad visible to the naked 

 eye at home, no one at the present moment can say that such a 

 thing is possible, while in face of the wonders that have been 

 done no one dare say that it is impossible. 



The commercial business of telegraphy, when our thoughts 



and wishes, orders and wants, c >uld be transmitted for money, 

 was inaugurated in this country by the establishment of the 

 Electric Telegraph Company in 1846, and until iS7oit remained 

 in the hands of private enterprise, when ir was purchased by the 

 Government, and placed under the sole control of the Postmaster- 

 General. It has hem the fashion to decry the terms of purchase 

 of the various undertakings then at work by those who have not 

 understood the question, and by those who, being politically 

 opposed to the Government in power at the time, saw all their 

 acts, not only through a glass darkly, but through a reversing 

 lens. A business producing ,£550,000 per annum was bought 

 at- twenty years' purchase, and that business has now increased 

 to £2, 000,000 per annum. 6,000,000 messages per annum 

 have increased to 52,000,000. 



Every post-office has been made a telegraph -office, every 

 village of any size has its wire ; messages which used to cost 

 12.?. 6d. are now sent for 6d. ; a tariff which was vexatious from 

 its unfair variation is now uniform over the United Kingdom, 

 and no one can justly complain of error or delay in the trans- 

 mission of their messages. Silly complaints are sometimes 

 inserted in the Press, of errors which the most elementary know- 

 ledge of the Morse alphabet would detect, and little credit is 

 given to the fact that the most perfect telegraph is subject to 

 strange disturbances from terrestrial and atmospheric causes 

 which admit sources of error beyond the control of the tele- 

 graphist. A flash of lightning in America may cause an extra 

 dot in Europe, and man may become war. An earthquake in 

 Japan may send a dash through France, and life would become 

 wife. A wild goose flying against a telegraph wire might drive 

 it into momentary contact with another wire, and sight might 

 become night. Everyone should know his Morse alphabet, 

 and people should learn how to write. Nine-tenths of 

 the errors made are due to the execrable calligraphy of the 

 present day. As a matter of fact, in ninety-nine cases out of a 

 hundred, the telegraphist delivers to the editor of a newspaper 

 " copy " far more accurate than the first proof of his own leader 

 submitted by the printer. The quantity of news transmitted is 

 enormous : an average of 1,538,270 words are delivered per day. 

 The recent Convention in Chicago, when the Republican party 

 of the United States nominated their candidate for the 

 Presidentship, created so much business that every American 

 paper has chronicled this big thing as unique. 500,000 words 

 were sent on one night ; but we in England, when Mr. Glad- 

 stone introduced his celebrated Home Rule Bill on April 8, 

 1886, sent from the Central Telegraph Office in London 

 1,500,000 words. 



The growth of business has led to vast improvement in the 

 carrying capacity of the wires. Cooke and Wheatstone required 

 five wires for their first needle instrument to work at the rate of 

 four words per minute. One wire can now convey six messages 

 at ten times the speed. The first Morse apparatus could work 

 at about five words a minute : we now transmit news at the rate 

 of 600 words a minute. In 1875 it was thought wonderful to 

 transmit messages to Ireland at 80 words a minute. When I 

 was recently in Belfast I timed messages coming at the rate of 

 461 words a minute. Duplex working— that is, two messages 

 travelling on the same wire at the same time in opposite direc- 

 tions, the invention of Gintl, of Vienna — is now the normal 

 mode of working ; Edison's quadruplex is common ; and the 

 Delany system of multiplex working is gradually being intro- 

 duced, by which six messages are indiscriminately sent in either 

 direction. The telegraphic system of England has been brought 

 to the highest pitch of perfection. We have neither neglected 

 the inventions of oth?r countries, nor have we been chary of 

 exercising inventive skill ourselves, and we have received our 

 full meed of that reward which is always freely bestowed on a 

 British Government official, neglect and abuse. All parts of 

 the civilized world are now united by submarine cables. The 

 Times every morning has despatches from every qmrter of the 

 globe, giving the news of the previous day. 110,000 miles of 

 cable have been laid by British ships, and nearly £40,000,000 

 of British capital have been expended by private enterprise in 

 completing this grand undertaking. A fleet of 37 ships is main- 

 tained in various oceans to lay new cables and to repair breaks 

 and faults as they occur — faults that arise, anong other causes, 

 from chafing on coral reefs, ships' anchors, the onslaught of 

 insects, and earthquakes. The two cables connecting Australia 

 and Java were recently simultaneously broken by an earthquake. 

 The politician, unmindful of the works of the engineer, is 

 apt to apply to the credit of his own proceedings the growing 



