THE FIRST ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 473 
-comprehensive, and embraced our subject. I think the subject worthy of the 
attention of our public men. The subject of roads and bridges does not now 
receive the attention which its great importance demands. They should not be 
left to well meaning farmers and citizens who neither have nor desire the scien- 
tific knowledge which their proper construction requires and the neglect of the 
watercourses is an annual cause of waste and damage. A railroad employs five 
men under a competent engineer for every six miles of road. This engineer has 
an office and generally a couple of clerks, and is expected to supervise the work 
on one hundred and fifty miles of road. The county of thirty townships would 
have about two hundred miles of roads and about three hundred and fifty miles 
of watercourses. Here is surely enough to employ one man constantly iii direct- 
ing works upon which the comfort, the advantage, the prosperity of so many 
people depend. If he be allowed a couple of clerks and six men to every town- 
ship the entire force could be usefully employed. And the im.portance of the 
interests involved demand the outlay We are now beyond the early day of our 
country life, and are entitled to more than the temporary accomodations that were 
all we could then aff'ord. The state of the country roads is in a measure the indi- 
cation of our civilization. From their present condition we do not stand high 
in the scale. 
PHYSICS. 
THE FIRST ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 
The idea of the practical application of the electric telegraph to the transmis- 
sion of messages, says a writer in Engineering, was first suggested by an anonymous 
correspondent of the Scots Magazine, in a letter dated Renfrew, February i, 
1753, signed C. M., and entitled "An Expeditious Method of Conveying Intel- 
ligence." 
After very considerable trouble, Sir David Brewster identified the writer as 
Charles Morrison, a native of Greenock, who was bred a surgeon, and experi- 
mented so largely in science that he was regarded in Renfrew as a wizard, and 
eventually found it convenient to leave that town and settle in Virginia, where 
he died. Mr. Morrison sent an account of his experiments to Sir Hans Sloane, 
the President of the Royal Society, in addition to publishing them anonymously, 
as stated above. 
The letter set forth a scheme by which a number of wires, equal to the 
letters of the alphabet, should be extended horizontally, parallel to one another, 
and about one inch apart, between two places. At every twenty yards they 
were to be carried on glass supports, and at each end they were to project six 
inches beyond the last support, and have sufficient strength and elasticity to 
