THE TECHNOLOGIST. I July 1, 1865 



534 THE PROGRESS OF 



thousands, and demand a lake or river of sulphuric acid to excite them. 

 The magnets are not less numerous than the batteries, and of lesser 

 instruments the name is legion. 



The materials employed in the construction of these components of 

 the telegraphic brain, and spinal cord and nerves of the world, repre- 

 sent all the quarters of the globe. Norwegian and Canadian wood, 

 Swedish steel, English iron, Australian copper, Silesian zinc, Singapore 

 gutta percha, Russian hemp, Sicilian sulphur, African palm oil, South 

 American platina, and other ingredients from every region of the world. 



The arts involved, who can patiently enumerate ? Consider for 

 yourself what felling of forests there must have been ! What quarry- 

 ing, and mining, and dressing of metallic ores ! What smelting and 

 working of metals ! What tapping of gutta-percha trees ! What 

 digging of coal and sulphur, and blazing of brimstone to make oil of 

 vitriol ! What loading of ships and guiding them safe across the seas 

 of the world ! and all this but the preparation of the raw material ! 



Add its elaboration and application ! The navvy work of laying 

 lines, spinning cables, erecting posts, and otherwise fitting together the 

 ruder components of the telegraph ; and the multiplied artistic skill in 

 constructing batteries, dials, alarums, and other refined apparatus 

 required upon the line ; and the staff of officials needed night and day 

 to make all this dead machine a Avakeful, working thing ! Consider all 

 this, and some one better at ciphers than myself must take the census, 

 and reduce to figures the mighty army and navy who at every moment 

 are unconfounding the confusion of Babel and solving the problem of a 

 universal tongue. 



Lastly, do justice to the authors of all this, and consider how vast is 

 the genius which our telegraph represents. All that the world knows 

 of electricity since first there was a thunderstorm ; all that the world 

 knows of magnetism, since first a loadstone was seen to lift iron dust ! 

 All that the world knows of a science, whose name chemistry has left 

 its first meaning in the forgotten darkness of antiquity ! All, moreover, 

 to be brief, that the entire circle of the sciences unfolds since first 

 history recorded their number, and gave us the means of predicting 

 their progress ! 



In saying this much, however, there is some anticipation. What, 

 after all is a telegraph ? So far it speaks for itself, As its name implies, 

 it is a device for effecting the communication of knowledge between 

 distant places, and enabling mankind to overcome the obstacle which 

 space presents to their speaking eye to eye. In addition, however, it 

 carries with it the conception of such intercommunication being effected 

 swiftly, and, in a word, seeks to annihilate, so far as may be, time as well 

 as space. The practical aim of the telegraph is thus to enable two 

 persons, each at the antipodes of the other, to converse together as 

 rapidly as if they were sitting side by side. 



Now to approximate even afar off to such a result, still more to 



