136 nature's 



carrying on some experiments on a wire be- 

 tween Milwaukee and Chicago. I had my 

 musical transmitter along, and one evening, 

 for the entertainment of some friends at the 

 Newhall House, a wire was stretched across 

 the street from the telegraph office into one 

 of the rooms of the hotel. A great number of 

 tunes were played at the telegraph-office by 

 Mr. Goodridge, who was my assistant at that 

 1 me, which were transmitted across the street, 

 as before stated. In those days it was a com- 

 mon practice in trlcgraphy to use one battery 

 for a great number of lines. For instance, 

 starting with one ground-wire which con- 

 nected with, say, the negative pole of the bat- 

 tery, from the positive pole two, three or a 

 half-dozen lines might be connected, running 

 in various directions, connecting with the 

 ground at the further end, thus completing 

 their circuits. For use in transmitting tones 

 across the street that evening we connected 

 our line-wire on to the telegraph company's 

 battery, which consisted of 100 or more cells, 

 and which had four or five more lines. radiat- 

 ing from the end of the battery to different 

 parts of Wisconsin. Our line was tapped on 

 to the battery (without changing any of its 

 connections) twenty cells from the ground- 

 wire. In transmitting, each vibration would 

 momentarily shut off these twenty cells from 

 the lines that were connected with the whole 



