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Ordinary Meeting, February 18th, 1862. 
J. P. Joule, LL.D., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 
Henry Ashworth, Esq., The Oaks, Bolton, and Thomas 
Clarke, M.D., Wilmslow, were elected Ordinary Members of 
the Society. 
Mr. Dyer made some remarks relative to the first invention 
of the electric telegraph, and read the following extract from 
Arthur Young’s “ Travels in France ” (2nd edition), London, 
1794, Avhich proved that electricity had been employed at 
that early date for the purpose of transmitting intelligence. 
“ In the evening to Mons. Lomond, a very ingenious and 
inventive mechanic, who has made an improvement in the 
jenny for spinning cotton. Common machines are said to 
make too hard a thread for certain fabrics, but this forms it 
loose and spongy. In electricity he has made a remarkable 
discovery. You write two or three words on a paper; he 
takes it with him into a room, and turns a machine enclosed 
in a cylindrical case, at the top of which is an electrometer, a 
small fine pith ball : a wire connects with a similar cylinder 
and electrometer in a distant apartment, and his wife by 
remarking the corresponding motions of the ball, writes down 
the words they indicate, from which it appears that he has 
formed an alphabet of motions. As the length of the wire 
makes no difference in the effect, a correspondence might be 
carried on at any distance ; within and Avithout a beseiged 
toAvn for instance, or for a purpose much more worthy, and a 
thousand times more harmless, between tAvo lovers prohibited 
Proceedings — Lit. & Phil. Society— No. 11.— Session 1861-62. 
