THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TELEGRAPH 



CURIOUSLY enough wireless telegraphy is 

 the oldest form of communication by telegraph, 

 as it is the most recently developed form 

 by electrical means. As electricity was not discovered 

 until about the beginning of the seventeenth century, 

 however, it is obvious that the wireless telegraph used 

 by such generals as Cyrus the Great, several centuries 

 before the Christian era, could not have been by means 

 of electrical apparatus. 



Nevertheless Cyrus used a form of communication 

 whereby messages were sent and received through the 

 air, and communications made with such rapidity that 

 in a single day a message could be sent to a distance 

 of thirty days' journey by horsemen more than the 

 distance across the Persian Empire. 



But Cyrus was only one of many commanders who 

 used a system of signal telegraphy. Many generals and 

 most nations since the beginning of history have had 

 some such means, more or less definitely developed, 

 for making such communication. When Napoleon was 

 engaged upon his Russian campaign, Paris was kept 

 constantly in touch with the movements of the French 

 army by means of signals, except on those rather 



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