n 



bzfou thz 



of 



By Mr. T. B. GROVES, P.C.S. (of Weymoutb). 



T would be out of place to preface this short paper 

 with a history of Telegraphy but I would 

 venture to suggest to those interested in the 

 subject of Beacons, Telegraphs, Semaphores, and 

 such things that a full and very able article on 

 them may be found in that useful, but little 

 consulted work, the Penny Encyclopaedia, from which I have 

 derived much of the information now offered. 



The necessity for communicating with distant friends must have 

 been felt in the very earliest times ; we are, therefore, not 

 surprised to find reference to Telegraphy of some form in most of 

 the ancient writers, whether sacred or profane. Indeed, the very 

 sparseness of population in days the most remote from civilisation 

 rendered it all the more imperative to be able to announce to 

 distant friends approaching danger, or the intended direction of a 

 tribal movement. At the present day the North- American Indians 

 have a code of signals by which they communicate information to 

 great distances by means of a cloud of smoke by day or a gleam 

 of fire by night, the phenomena being interrupted in an orderly 

 way by the interposition of screens of deer hide. But beacon 



