714 Experiments on the communication of [Sept. 



Art. VI. — Memoranda relative to experiments on the communication 

 of Telegraphic Signals by induced Electricity . — ByW. B. O'Shaugh- 

 nessy, M. D. Assistant Surgeon ; Professor of Chemistry, Medical 

 College, Calcutta; and Officiating Joint -Secretary to the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal, 



There are few projects which at first sight appear so visionary as 

 those which promise practical benefit to mankind through the agency 

 of electrical operations. From the dawning of knowledge in this 

 science, pretenders of every grade have found it a free field for their 

 speculations : and hence perhaps it arises that the sober and practical 

 part of society generally regard with distrust, the multitudes of projects 

 which electricians are constantly advancing. 



We nevertheless find that many eminent philosophers — whose habits 

 of cautious research, have been proved by their numerous contributions 

 to the mass of general science — such men as Brande, Faraday, Wheat- 

 stone, and Fox — are amongst the foremost, who predict many real 

 advantages to the community from the application of the mysterious, 

 though readily controllable forces which electricity places at our com- 

 mand. 



I am aware that I am less entitled than many others to have my 

 inferences from electrical data attended to with confidence, having at 

 least on one occasion fallen into the error of indulging prematurely in 

 dreams of useful results, and of reasoning unguardedly from the model 

 to the machine. Still I believe that the experiments detailed in this 

 paper, will be found to admit fairly of the consequences to which they 

 seem to me to lead. They appear to me conclusive as to the perfect 

 practicability of establishing, at a cheap rate, telegraphical communi- 

 cations, acting through electrical agencies, certain and infallible in their 

 indications, perceptible alike by night and day, in all varieties of 

 weather and season, and, lastly, so swift in their nature, that the 

 greatest distances concerned bear scarcely any appreciable proportion to 

 the inconceivably brief period in which the signal can be conveyed. 



I was induced to institute the experiments detailed in this paper, 

 by the statements I had read in several periodicals regarding similar 

 attempts in England and the continents of Europe and America, and 

 the actual patenting and adoption by the directors of the London and 

 Birmingham railway of a similar plan by Professor Wheatstone, of 

 the King's College, London. 



Before entering into details regarding my experiments, which were 

 carried on in the Botanical Gardens of Calcutta, during May of this 



