100 nature's dBtracles. 



But there is a " call " for each office, so that 

 the operator only heeds the instrument when 

 he hears his own call. Operators become so ex- 

 pert in reading by sound that they may lie 

 down and sleep in the room, and, although the 

 instrument is rattling away all the time, he 

 does not hear it till his own call is made, when 

 he immediately awakes. 



In the old days messages were received on 

 slips of paper by the Morse register by means 

 of dots and dashes. Gradually the operator 

 learned to read by sound, till now this mode 

 of receiving is almost universal the world 

 over. Reading by sound was of American 

 origin. It is a spoken lan^uairo, and when one 

 becomes accustomed to it it is like any other 

 language. This code language has some ad- 

 vantages over articulate speech, as well as 

 many disadvantages. A gentleman who was 

 connected with a Louisville telegraph office 

 told me that one of the best operators he ever 

 knew was as deaf as a post. He would receive 

 the message by holding his knee against the 

 leg of the table upon which the sounder was 

 mounted, and through the sense of feeling re- 

 ceive the long and short vibrations of the 

 table, and by this means read as well or better 

 than through the ear, because he was not dis- 

 tracted by other sounds. 



A story is told of the late General Stager 

 that at one time he was on a train that was 



