ON SOME MARVELS IN 

 TELEGRAPHY. 



WITHIN the last few years Electric Telegraphy has received 

 some developments which seem wonderful even by com- 

 parison with those other wonders which had before been 

 achieved by this method of communication. In reality, all 

 the marvels of electric telegraphy are involved, so to speak, 

 in the great marvel of electricity itself, a phenomenon as yet 

 utterly beyond the interpretation of physicists, though not 

 more so than its fellow marvels, light and heat We may, 

 indeed, draw a comparison between some of the most 

 wonderful results which have recently been achieved by the 

 study of heat and light and those effected in the application 

 of electricity to telegraphy. It is as startling to those 

 unfamiliar with the characteristics of light, or rather with 

 certain peculiarities resulting from these characteristics, to be 

 told that an astronomer can tell whether there is water in the 

 air of Mars or Venus, or iron vapour in the atmosphere ol 

 Aldebaran or Betelgeux, as it is to those unfamiliar with the 

 characteristics of electricity, or with the results obtained in 

 consequence of these characteristics, to be told that a written 

 message can be copied by telegraph, a map or diagram 

 reproduced, or, most wonderful of all, a musical air correctly 

 repeated, or a verbal message made verbally audible. 

 Telegraphic marvels such as these bear to the original 



