EARL Y HISTOR Y OF THE TELEGRAPH. 681 
the dislocation following the shock took place simultaneously upon the whole 
line. In the majority of places it consisted of a short succussory shaking fol- 
lowed by a few lateral and less energetic oscillations, the direction of all being 
approximatively from east to west. The mean duration was but three to four 
seconds, the intensity varying between three and eight degrees of the Swiss- 
Italian seismic scale, and the phenomenon has to be classed with the longitudi- 
nal earthquakes of a pre-eminently transversal direction. The noises connected 
with the seismic phenomena preceded the shock, or were synchronous with them ; 
none were heard after the shock. South of Martigny (Valois) and north of Mul- 
house (Alsace) no disturbance was felt, though oscillations had occurred two weeks 
before in Southern Germany, Piedmont and Lombardy. 
EARLY HISTORY OF THE TELEGRAPH. 
Although the electric telegraph is, comparatively speaking, a recent inven- 
tion, yet methods of communication at a distance, by means of signals, have 
probably existed in all ages and in all nations. There is reason to believe that 
among the Greeks a system of telegraphy was in use, as the burning of Troy 
was certainly known in Greece very soon after it happened, and before any per- 
son had returned from Troy. Polybius names the different instruments used by 
the ancients for communicating information — " Pyrsia," because the signals were 
always made by means of fire lights. At first they communicated information of 
events in an imperfect manner, but a new method was invented by Cleoxenus, 
which was much improved by Polybius, as he himself informs us, and which may 
be described as follows : 
Take the letters of the alphabet and arrange them on a board in five columns, 
each column containing five letters ; then the man who signals would hold up 
with his left hand a number of torches which would represent the number of the 
column from which the letter is to be taken ; and with his right hand a number 
of torches that will represent the particular letter in that column that is to be 
taken. It is thus easy to understand how the letters of a short sentence are com- 
municated from station to station as far as required. This is the pyrsia or tele- 
graph of Polybius. 
It seems that the Romans had a method of telegraphing in their walled cities, 
either by a hollow formed in the masonry, or by a tube fixed thereto so as to 
confine the sound, in order to convey information to any part they liked. This 
method of communicating is in the present age frequently employed in the well- 
known speaking tubes. It does not appear that the moderns had thought of such 
a thing as a telegraph until 1661, when the Marquis of Worcester, in his ''Cen- 
tury of Inventions," affirmed that he had discovered a method by which a man 
could hold discourse with his correspondent as far as they could reach, by night 
as well as by day ; he did not, however, describe this invention. 
Dr. Hooke delivered a discourse before the Royal Society in 1684, show- 
VII— i3 
