July 1, 1865.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



THE PROGRESS OF THE TELEGRAPH. 



BY THE LATE PROF. GEO. WILSON. 



Man has been defined as a laughing, a cooking, a naked animal, but 

 never so far as I know, as a telegraphic one. In truth, when we 

 watch the proceedings of any of the social or gregarious creatures, we 

 cannot fail to acknowledge that they have carried the art of telegraphy 

 to wondrous perfection, ages ago. 



We may, or we may not excel them in speaking face to face, but who 

 shall say that we are their superiors in asking or answering across spaces 

 far removed from each other, or comfort us with the thought that our 

 system of signalling is better than theirs ? We nicely discuss whether 

 telegraph is a proper word or not, and invoke the Heroes of Homer to 

 side with us, for or against a term which would have tried every Greek 

 tongue in its utterance, and vexed every Greek tongue in its hearing. 

 And all the while the bees who rejoice amidst the sugar plantations of 

 our heather, warn and welcome each other in songs which the bees of 

 Hymettus sang to each other; and the grasshoppers signal from meadow 

 to meadow as they did of old, when the musical shiver of their wings 

 rang over Greece as its cradle psalm. It is scarcely necessary to parti- 

 cularise animals, for all the social ones have from the beginning con- 

 stituted themselves joint-stock telegraph companies with limited 

 liability, and their shares are now below par. For one, I am lost in 

 wonder and reverence, when I consider the telegraphic doings of the 

 humblest creatures. Whether it be a legion of locusts bent on a war 

 of extermination, or a cohort of caterpillars seeking forage, or a bevy of 

 butterflies arranging for a dance : in some mysterious silent way the 

 signal passes, and all understand it, and all obey it. 



I watch a troop of. crows, who by some "own correspondent" 

 of theirs have learned that farmer Blyth's neighbours will hold a 



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