6 THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 



without a suspicion of the glorious results to which they 

 were leading. And even in the hands of the ingenious and 

 original Franklin, we do not find that the idea suggested 

 itself to him to apply the power he found capable of being 

 felt at the end of a wire of considerable length, to the com- 

 munication of intelligence. 



II. TELEGRAPHS BY FRTCTIONAL ELECTRICITY. 



11. In the Scot's Magazine for 1753* is a letter to the 

 Editor, from a correspondent signing himself " C. M.," to 

 whom we must give the credit of being the first who 

 published the idea of applying electricity to the telegraph. 



This interesting communication is as follows : 



" To the Editor of the ' Scof* Magazine. 9 



" Renfrew, Feb. 1st, 1753. 



" SIR, It is well known to all who are conversant in electrical 

 experiments, that the electric power may be propagated along a small 

 wire, from one place to another, without being sensibly abated by 

 the length of its progress. Let, then, a set of wires, equal in number 

 to the letters of the alphabet, be extended horizontally between two 

 given places, parallel to one another, and each of them about an 

 inch distant from that next to it. At every twenty yards' end, let 

 them be fixed in glass, or jeweller's cement, to some firm body, both 

 to prevent them from touching the earth or any other non-electric, 

 and from breaking by their own gravity. Let the electric gun-barrel 

 be placed at right angles with the extremities of the wires, and about 

 one inch below them. Also, let the wires be fixed in a solid piece 

 of glass, at six inches from the end ; and let that part of them which 

 reaches from the glass to the machine have sufficient spring and 

 stiffness to recover its situation after having been brought in contact 

 with the barrel. Close by the supporting glass, let a ball be sus- 

 pended from every wire ; and about a sixth or an eighth of an inch 

 below the balls place the letters of the alphabet, marked on bits of 

 paper, or any other substance that may be light enough to rise to 

 the electrified ball ; and at the same time let it be so continued that 

 each of them may reassume its proper place wiien dropped. All 



* Scot's Magazine, vol. xv. p. 73. The page is headed " An expeditious 

 method of conveying intelligence." 



