Fuly 28, 1870] 
NATURE 
257 
THE GUATTARI ATMOSPHERIC TELEGRAPH 
HIS new invention is stated to consist of certain 
arrangements and combinations of apparatus whereby 
ordinary air compressed and passed through a tube, is 
utilised as a means of communicating intelligence from 
one given point to another, effecting the same object as 
the electric telegraph. 
The principal portion of the apparatus consists of 
a reservoir or air-vessel which is charged or filled with 
air compressed to any desired degree according to the 
initial velocity or force which it is requisite the movements 
of the air employed should possess. A double action 
compression pump, or any other suitable mechanism, may 
be employed te charge the reservoir or air-vessel, and to 
sustain the pressure to the required degree. The reser- 
voir or air-vessel is connected by means ofa tube or pipe 
with a writing apparatus of any suitable description, and 
such as are well known and understood, especially in con- 
nection with electro-telegraphy ; the tube or pipe being 
provided with a cock by which more or less force may be 
given to the current of air whereby the writing mechanism 
is actuated, In order to regulate the signals, a governor 
or piston, actuated by hand, is employed, by which 
pulsations or movements of the air in the tube or pipe 
are transmitted through a valve which is arranged 
therein, the currents actuating a lever connected with 
the writing apparatus. For the purpose of giving or 
receiving signals, the before-mentioned tube or pipe is 
connected with a conducting tube or pipe constructed of 
any suitable material, and which is so arranged that com- 
munication can be established between the air reservoir, 
or vessel, and the writing engine which is placed at the 
receiving station, or vice versa, by means of stop-cocks 
which are worked by hand. An indicator is employed to 
show the force of the current of air passing through the 
transmitting tube or pipe. Similar arrangements are, of 
course, placed and employed at each end of communica- 
tion. By means of this invention it is stated that intelli- 
gence and signals can be transmitted to any distance ; 
any of the known receiving and recording instruments 
capable of being used in connection therewith being em- 
ployed. It is obvious that any number of conducting 
tubes may be employed, the requisite currents or pulsa- 
tions of air therein being produced as before mentioned. 
The Guattari system claims to be more simple than the 
electric system, both in point of construction and con- 
tinuous use, for whereas in the latter case it is necessary 
to use the electric battery and all its accessories, by the 
former ordinary atmospheric air compressed will perform 
similar functions. It is also claimed for it that it is free 
from atmospheric influences, which itis well known mate- 
tially disturb the electric telegraph on the occasion of 
storms ; and that the tubes employed as the medium for 
conducting the air would not be subjected to accidents like 
the ordinary wires, and would therefore necessarily last 
longer, and thus prove much more economical. We un- 
derstand also that it is so simple that any person may 
learn ina few hours how to use and work it with the 
greatest ease, as compared with the electric system ; it is 
calculated that the machinery necessary to work this 
system could be produced at about one-half the producing 
and annual working cost of the electric system. 
The Royal Scientific Institute of Naples has already 
awarded to Signor Guattari a gold medal in recognition 
of what they consider an important invention, adding a 
graceful tribute on its presentation to the effect that it 
was the only gold medal which the Institute had ever 
awarded. The following experiments were made on 
Monday, 11th July, 1870 :— 
1. Transmission by atmospheric compression by means 
of the large machine, obtaining answers by impulsion and 
repulsion, Signor Guattari having at present but one 
machine, 
2. System of impulsion and repulsion by a naval 
apparatus, which may be used with five different deriva- 
tions or branches. 
3. Universal telegraphy, namely, despatching telegrams 
to one or more stations at the same time without the aid 
of the transmitting machine or the necessity of the sender 
remaining fixed to any one point. 
ON DEEP-SEA CLIMATES* 
ECENT investigations have certainly tended to 
confirm the view originally advocated by my col- 
league, Dr. Carpenter, and myself, that a large portion 
of the bottom of the present sea has been under water 
and _ continuously accumulating sediment, at all events 
since the commencement of the “ Cretaceous period,” and 
possibly much earlier. The marked parallelism which, 
setting aside all local dislocations and denudations, evi- 
dently exists between the Jurassic, the Cretaceous, the 
Tertiary formations, and the present sea-board, and the 
evident relation of that parallelism to the older rock axes, 
would seem indeed to indicate that the main features of 
the present physical geography may date from a period 
even anterior to the deposition of the older Mesozoic rocks. 
With many minor and temporary oscillations, of which we 
have ample geological evidence, the borders of the Oolitic, 
the Cretaceous, and the Tertiary seas, have apparently 
been successively and permanently raised, and the ocean 
over an area, the long axis of which may probably cor- 
respond with that of the Atlantic, proportionally contracted. 
The question simply is, whether, since the elevation of 
the Jurassic beds, any oscillation has at any time raised 
into dry land the whole of the trough of the Atlantic, so 
as to arrest the deposit of sediment abruptly over the 
area, and to extinguish all animal life, thus defining what 
seems to be popularly understood as the close of a geo- 
logical period, and requiring the complete repeopling 
of the succeeding sea by immigration, or, according to 
another view, by the creation of an entirely new fauna. 
It seemed to us on the whole more probable that the suc- 
cessive elevations of the borders of the Mesozoic sea were 
accompanied by compensating depression and deepening 
of the centre of the trough, which may thus have been 
inhabited throughout by a continuous succession of animal 
forms ; at all events, the onus of proof appeared to rest 
with those who maintained any breach of continuity. 
The deep-sea dredgings on both sides of the Atlantic 
have brought to light a very large number of hitherto un- 
known animal forms, and undoubtedly the assemblage 
bears a decided resemblance to the fauna of the chalk—a 
resemblance which increases.as the investigation proceeds. 
Probably the most striking point is the apparent identity 
of the material of the chalk with the chalk-mud of 
the Atlantic ; the globigerinze and coccoliths by whose 
accumulation the beds have been, and are now, being pro- 
duced, seem to be the same; though, of course, it is 
difficult to determine with certainty the specific identity 
of such simple and variable forms. Sponges are abun- 
dant in both, and the recent chalk-mud has yielded a 
large number of the examples of the group fordfera 
vitrea, which find their nearest representatives among 
the ventriculites of the white chalk. From Prof. Martin 
Duncan’s report it would appear that the corals, which 
are chiefly confined to water of moderate depth, are 
most nearly allied to those of the later Tertiaries. The 
echinoderm fauna of the deeper parts of the Atlantic 
basin is very characteristic, and yields an assemblage of 
forms which represents in a remarkable degree the cor- 
responding group in the white chalk. Species of the genus 
Cidaris are numerous ; some remarkable flexible forms 
of the Diademidze seem to approach E£chinothuria. M. 
* The substance of a Lecture delivered to the Natural Science Class in 
Queen’s College, Belfast, at the close of the summer session, July 15, 1870. 
