290 Of Telegraphic Communication , 
As the name is descriptive of a contrivance by which 
information is almost instantaneously conveyed to a con- 
siderable distance, whenever we find a cirmumstance of 
this nature recorded, it is natural to conclude that it was 
effected by some agent possessing similar qualities. It is 
generally regarded as a well- authenticated fact, that the 
burning of Troy was known in Greece a very short time 
after it happened, and long before it was possible for any 
person to have arrived there from the scene of confiagra- 
tion. One of the Greek plays opens with a scene in which 
a watchman descends from a tower in Greece with the 
news that Troy was taken. He thus expresses himself : 
46 I have been looking out these ten years to see when 
that would happen, and this night it is done a proof 
that the ancients possessed some mode of conveying in- 
formation very quickly to a great distance ; but what that 
mode was, it is not so easy to determine. When the Chi- 
nese courtiers travel to distant parts of the empire, sig- 
nals are made by means of fire from one day's journey to 
another, in order that preparations may be made for their 
reception. In most barbarous nations it was customary to 
give the alarm of war by fires lighted on the tops of hills ; 
and Polybius styles the instruments used by the ancients 
for communicating intelligence in this manner, jpyrsiw* 
because, the signals were made by means of fire. A new 
method of accomplishing this object was invented by Cle- 
oxenus (some say by Democritus,} and much improved 
by Polybius. He divided the Greek alphabet into five 
parts, and expressed the letters on boards in five columns. 
The order in which these letters were to be taken was 
signified by torches held up in certain positions, previous- 
ly agreed upon by the parties. 
Neither this last-mentioned method, nor any other 
known to the ancients, however, appears to have been 
carried into general use ; nor have we any account of any 
