76 



INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES. 



poem, of which the following are 

 the lines alluding to Strada's 

 fanciful idea of the sympathetic 

 needles : 



" For when the different images of 



things 

 By chance combined, have struck the 



attentive soul 



"With deeper impulse, or, connected long, 

 Have drawn her frequent eye ; howe'cr 



distinct 

 The external scenes, yet oft the ideas 



gain 



From that conjunction an eternal tie 

 And sympathy unbroken. Let the mind 

 IJecal one partner of the various league, 

 Immediate, lo ! the firm confederates 



rise. 

 'Twas thus, if ancient fame the truth 



unfold. 



Two faithful needles, from the inform- 

 ing touch 



Of the same parent-stone, together drew 

 Its mystic virtue, and at first conspired 

 With fatal impulse quivering to the 



pole. 

 Then, though disjoined by kingdoms 



though the main 

 Rolled its broad surge betwixt and 



different stars 



Beheld their wakeful motions yet pre- 

 served 

 The former friendship, and remembered 



still 

 The alliance of their birth. Whate'cr 



the line 

 "Which one ^possessed, nor pause nor 



quiet knew 

 The sure associate, ere, with trembling 



speed, 

 He found its path, and fixed unerring 



there." 



Addison, in one of his elegant 

 papers in the Spectator, also refers 

 to Strada's fancy, and in a playful 

 strain observes " If ever this in- 

 vention should be revived, or put in 

 practice, I would propose that upon 

 the lover.s dial-plate there should 

 be written, not only the twenty-four 

 letters, but several entire words 

 which have always a place in pas- 

 sionate epistles; as, flames, darts, 

 die, language, absence, Cupid, heart, 

 eyes, hang, drown, and the like. 

 This would very much abridge the 

 lover's pains in this way of writing 

 a letter, as it would enable him 



to express the most useful and sig- 

 nificant words with a single turn of 

 the needle." 



ORIGIN OF THE TELEGXAPH. 



Upwards of sixty years ago (or, 

 in 1787-89), when Arthur Young 

 was travelling in France, he met 

 with a Monsieur Lomond, " a very 

 ingenious and inventing mechanic," 

 who had made a remarkable dis- 

 covery in electricity. " You write 

 two or three words on a paper," 

 says Young : "he takes it with him 

 into a room, and turns a machine 

 inclosed in a cylindrical case at the 

 top of which is an electrometer, a 

 small, fine, pith ball ; a wire con- 

 nects with a similar cylinder and 

 electrometer in a distant apartment; 

 and his wife, by remarking the cor- 

 responding motions of the ball, 

 writes down the words they indi- 

 cate; from which it appears that 

 he has formed an alphabet of mo- 

 tions. As the length of the wire 

 makes no difference in theeffect, a 

 correspondence might be earned on 

 at any distance. Whatever the use 

 may be, the invention is beautiful." 



The possibility of applying elec- 

 tricity to telegraphic communica- 

 tion was conceived by several other 

 persons, long before it was attempted 

 upon a practical scale. The Rev. 

 Mr. Gamble, in his description of 

 his original shutter-telegraph, pub- 

 lished towards the close of the last 

 century, alludes to a project of elec- 

 trical communication. Mr. Francis 

 Eonalds, in a pamphlet on this sub- 

 ject, published in 1823, states that 

 Cavallo proposed to convey intelli- 

 gence by passing given numbers of 

 sj>arks through an iusulate_cl wire; 

 and that, in 1816, he himself made- 

 experiments upon this principle, 

 which he deemed more promising 

 than the application of galvanic or 

 voltaic electricity, which had been 

 projected by some Germans and 

 Americans. He succeeded perfectly 

 in transmitting signals through a 



