2 6 
THE TELEGRAPH. 
This even gives telegraphic superintendents a means of control 
and supervision over their offices. 
Mr. Neale, the electrician of the North Staffordshire 
Kailway, has recently improved the American apparatus 
which are read by sound, by inventing for use on railways, 
telegraphs in which the despatch is read by the ear instead of 
by the eye. His first object was, of course, to increase the 
sound and make the signals more distinct. For this purpose 
he transmits the movement to a strip of iron which on one 
side strikes against a metallic point, and on the other against 
a wooden peg, and thus produces two different sounds. The 
whole is enclosed in a case which is constructed to reinforce 
the sound. The receiving clerk, in whatever part of the 
office he may be placed, may write down the despatch as fast 
as he hears it without even looking at the instrument. The 
call signal may be heard outside of the office even when the 
doors are closed, and thus the cost of a call-bell is dispensed 
with, which is a great advantage for small stations. 
Not all the methods that men have invented for corre¬ 
sponding by the propagation of sound have been put into 
practical use. There is a small apparatus called the String 
Telegraph, which seems to have been invented by Robert 
Hooke as early as 1667. 
He says :—By means of a stretched cord, I have been able 
to instantly transmit sound to a great distance with a velocity 
as great as that of light, and incomparably greater than that 
of sound in air. This transmission can be effected not only 
with the cord stretched in a straight line, but also when it has 
several bends. 
This simple apparatus might have rendered good service to 
mankind since the period of its invention ; but it has merely 
been employed as a toy for children or a medium for the con¬ 
versations of lovers ; and further, has only been recently used 
in Europe, although it has long been utilised by imperfectly- 
civilised races, and is met with among the American Indians 
in the Far West. 
We saw it used in the Pyrenees in a way that is worth 
describing. Two isard hunters, separated from each other 
by the height of a rock, communicated by means of a cord 
telegraph, the string of which was about 120 yards long. The 
