Heroes of the Telegraph | Page 5

This experiment was made by Joseph Franz, of Vienna, in 1746,
and Dr. Watson, of London, in 1747; while Franklin ignited spirits by a
spark which had been sent across the Schuylkill river by the same
means. But none of these men seem to have grasped the idea of
employing the fleet fire as a telegraph.
The first suggestion of an electric telegraph on record is that published
by one 'C. M.' in the Scots Magazine for February 17, 1753. The device
consisted in running a number of insulated wires between two places,
one for each letter of the alphabet. The wires were to be charged with
electricity from a machine one at a time, according to the letter it
represented. At its far end the charged wire was to attract a disc of
paper marked with the corresponding letter, and so the message would
be spelt. 'C. M.' also suggested the first acoustic telegraph, for he
proposed to have a set of bells instead of the letters, each of a different
tone, and to be struck by the spark from its charged wire.
The identity of 'C. M.,' who dated his letter from Renfrew, has not been
established beyond a doubt. There is a tradition of a clever man living
in Renfrew at that time, and afterwards in Paisley, who could 'licht a
room wi' coal reek (smoke), and mak' lichtnin' speak and write upon the
wa'.' By some he was thought to be a certain Charles Marshall, from
Aberdeen; but it seems likelier that he was a Charles Morrison, of
Greenock, who was trained as a surgeon, and became connected with
the tobacco trade of Glasgow. In Renfrew he was regarded as a kind of
wizard, and he is said to have emigrated to Virginia, where he died.

In the latter half of the eighteenth century, many other suggestions of
telegraphs based on the known properties of the electric fire were
published; for example, by Joseph Bozolus, a Jesuit lecturer of Rome,
in 1767; by Odier, a Geneva physicist, in 1773, who states in a letter to
a lady, that he conceived the idea on hearing a casual remark, while
dining at Sir John Pringle's, with Franklin, Priestley, and other great
geniuses. 'I shall amuse you, perhaps, in telling you,' he says,'that I
have in my head certain experiments by which to enter into
conversation with the Emperor of Mogol or of China, the English, the
French, or any other people of Europe ... You may intercommunicate
all that you wish at a distance of four or five thousands leagues in less
than half an hour. Will that suffice you for glory?'
George Louis Lesage, in 1782, proposed a plan similar to 'C. M.'s,'
using underground wires. An anonymous correspondent of the
JOURNAL DE PARIS for May 30, 1782, suggested an alarm bell to
call attention to the message. Lomond, of Paris, devised a telegraph
with only one wire; the signals to be read by the peculiar movements of
an attracted pith-ball, and Arthur Young witnessed his plan in action, as
recorded in his diary. M. Chappe, the inventor of the semaphore, tried
about the year 1790 to introduce a synchronous electric telegraph, and
failed.
Don Francisco Salva y Campillo, of Barcelona, in 1795, proposed to
make a telegraph between Barcelona and Mataro, either overhead or
underground, and he remarks of the wires, 'at the bottom of the sea
their bed would be ready made, and it would be an extraordinary
casualty that should disturb them.' In Salva's telegraph, the signals were
to be made by illuminating letters of tinfoil with the spark. Volta's great
invention of the pile in 1800 furnished a new source of electricity,
better adapted for the telegraph, and Salva was apparently the first to
recognise this, for, in the same year, he proposed to use it and interpret
the signals by the twitching of a frog's limb, or the decomposition of
water.
In 1802, Jean Alexandre, a reputed natural son of Jean Jacques
Rousseau, brought out a TELEGRAPHE INTIME, or secret telegraph,
which appears to have been a step-by-step apparatus. The inventor
concealed its mode of working, but it was believed to be electrical, and
there was a needle which stopped at various points on a dial. Alexandre

stated that he had found out a strange matter or power which was,
perhaps generally diffused, and formed in some sort the soul of the
universe. He endeavoured to bring his invention under the eye of the
First Consul, but Napoleon referred the matter to Delambre, and would
not see it. Alexandre was born at Paris, and served as a carver and
gilder at Poictiers; then sang in the churches till the Revolution
suppressed this means of livelihood. He rose to influence as a
Commissary-general, then retired