164 
“ Note on Early Anticipations of a Magnetic Telegraph,” 
by Professor W. S. Jevons, M.A., F.KS. 
Mr. Harry Grimshaw, F.C.S., drew attention, on Feb- 
ruary 20th, to the very interesting fact that physicists had 
two or three centuries ago imagined the possibility of 
making distant communications by the use of the magnetic 
needle, and he has pointed out a work containing allusions 
to a magnetic telegraph. This curious subject has not re- 
ceived the attention which it seems to deserve, but it was 
not wholly unknown. The Abbe Moigno, in his Traite de 
Telegraphie Electrique (Paris, 1852), alludes to what he 
calls this “Charmant reve, ou operation necromancienne,” 
and he points out that Addison had quoted the remarkable 
verses of Famianus Strada in the Sjoectator, No. 241. Addi- 
son speaks of “a chimerical correspondence between two 
friends by the help of a loadstone.” Strada’s remarkable 
lines are also quoted and translated in Mr. George Dodd's 
account of “ Railways, Steamers, and Telegraphs : a Glance 
at their recent Progress and Present State” (Chambers, 1867). 
About ten years ago I spent some trouble in investigating 
this curious anticipation of the telegraph, but only published 
the results in the form of a brief anonymous article in a 
weekly newspaper. I found allusions to a magnetic tele- 
graph running through many scientific, or quasi-scientific, 
v/orks of the 16th and 17th centuries. Sir Thomas Browne, 
in his Pseudodoxica Epidemica, says : — “ The conceit is 
excellent, and, if the effect would follow, somewhat divine 
and he speaks of it as a conceit “whispered thorow the 
world with some attention, credulous and vulgar auditors 
readily believing it, and more judicious and distinctive 
heads not altogether rejecting it.” Sir Thomas, it would 
seem, submitted the matter to experiment, but found that 
though the needles were separated but half a span, when 
one was moved “the other would stand like Hercules 
pillars.” 
